Dust To Dust
by Tentative Steps
Summary: Nikki gets mixed up in something far more sinister than she could ever have known... "My name is Doctor Nicola Alexander, and this is the story of how I died." Multi-chap angsty goodness with a little H/N thrown in for free! Provisionally rated "T".
1. Prologue

**A/N: I finished my job today, and won't be going back to it until after my A-levels (in order to do coursework), but a side-effect of 12 extra hours of weekend is that I have extra writing time… so this may well turn into a long-ish multi-chap :) Yay on angsty goodness! Xxx Saffy**

* * *

Dust to Dust  
_A 'Silent Witness' fanfic by Saffy Scarlett_

**Prologue**

_I'd never really given much thought to how I'd die, but I suppose I would have liked to have passed away of old age, in my sleep. In typical style, however, my wish wasn't granted._

_I suppose, in some ways, that I was lucky; the war took me early on. It's the people who I left behind that I pity – not just because of their grief, but because of that fact that they had to carry on battling, through everything I was able to leave behind…_

A churchyard, in March. The sunlight peaks through the clouds, and catches on the rain drops… and the tears. Two men, dressed in black, stand close together, holding their wives close against the bitter cold, as they watch a coffin being slowly lowered into the ground.

The older couple stare blankly down into the pit, their faces stoical. The younger man, too, is expressionless; the younger woman, though, cries bitter, painful tears into her husband's shoulder. He leans down and kisses her on the top of the head, carefully teasing a strand of tawny hair back into place, as the priest begins his mantra;

"Ashes to ashes; dust to dust…"

_I gave up my fight so early on, it seems, with hindsight – I was fighting a losing battle from the very beginning. Before we even realised what was happening, the net was tightening around us, pulling us in, and trapping us, so that my death was the only outcome possible…_

A gunshot goes off in the distance, and Harry, crouching, hidden, suddenly buckles, tears of rage and fear and frustration and grief pouring down his cheeks; it's over, then… it's the end… the moment they had all prayed would never have to happen… the moment which, inevitably, did…

_We thought that we'd covered all the tracks; we thought that we had everything under control… but, from the very start, it was anything but in our control. I remember how it started, and I remember, too, how certain we'd been that we had every base covered. Harry once told me, I recall, that it was always me against the world… and, this time, I suppose that he was right. If only I'd not been so hell-bent on justice… if only I'd known when to give in…_

"Leo, look at this…" A blonde woman in a lab-coat crosses the room, a pile of papers in her hand, and a defiant look on her face. She passes the papers to her boss, and smiles knowingly. He surveys the papers, and concedes that she was right all along…

"Be careful," he cautions her; "I don't think that you really understand exactly what it is that you're getting yourself into."

"I'm a big girl, Leo," she replies, "I can fight my own battles."

_But… I couldn't, could I? Not really… not if it ended up like this… _

_I thought, all along, that I was invincible, and that they would never dare hurt me… that they'd not come after me, or make me fight this crazy war. But, they did… of course they did. They were always going to…_

_**My name is Doctor Nicola Alexander, and this is the story of how I died…**_


	2. Massacre

**Massacre**

_The way it started was ordinary enough… it was just like any other case, and, as it began, I had other things on my mind. I wasn't focussing; I didn't see the things that were staring me in the face. I should have, but I didn't. Sometimes, I feel like I could have stopped it before it even began, but I'd be lying if I said that was true…_

_No one could have stopped it. No one._

*

"Right," Leo said, crossing into the main offices of the lab and interrupting an apparently hilarious conversation between Harry and Nikki, "I have a case for you." He paused for a second, watching as they turned from him, to each other, and he laughed as he saw them mentally vying for it – they'd both been inside, doing paperwork, for most of the week, and a crime scene was just what both of them wanted. They thought that, as usual, they would have to fight for it. Leo smiled, adding "for _both_ of you…"

"Both of us?" Harry asked, unnerved. Scenes requiring the two of them tended to be… unpleasant. Or vast.

"Yup." Leo confirmed, "we definitely need the pair of you down there. We've… there's… we have seven bodies, in a garage in Islington."

"Seven bodies?" Harry asked:

"In a garage?" Nikki added:

"On Valentine's day?" Harry added, dryly.

Leo smiled; they'd realised the significance. He'd wondered whether either of them would know, but he supposed that they _were_ forensic pathologists, and that they were also clever and shrewd… and that almost everyone knew about the St. Valentine's day massacre of 1929, anyway.

"You see," Leo smiled, "this scene is definitely going to require two of you. And, there will be heavy police presence all around, too; it's… it seems a little bit unlikely that this is a coincidence."

"You're telling me…" Harry laughed, rolling his eyes and moving to turn his computer off, ready to head out.

"Are you worried, Leo?" Nikki asked, picking up on what Harry had missed; namely the way that Leo was shaking slightly, and the way that his voice was faltering as he spoke.

He nodded; "anyone out to copy the Valentine's Day Massacre is serious. It's not something that I would personally choose to be involved in."

"And so you're sending us." Harry confirmed, oddly cheerfully.

"I don't have a choice; we definitely need to send two experienced pathologists, and I am absolutely snowed under with this last case at the moment. It has to be the pair of you. There's no one else."

"We'll be fine, Leo." Nikki smiled, crossing to him and gently placing a hand on his shoulder, "don't you worry about us."

"Mmmm." Harry echoed; "we're big kids. One day, we may even act our ages."

"I should be so lucky…" Leo sighed, nodding slightly. He was over-reacting; Nikki and Harry would be fine. They'd examine the bodies, speak to some detectives and bring the bodies back, the way they always did. There was nothing more to it. It would be fine. They would be protected.

*

"What," Harry asked, "is a beautiful girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"Harry," Nikki sighed, glancing up at him from where she was kneeling down on the other side of the garage, "please stop talking to the mutilated corpses."

"They're not very attractive, are they?"

"On the whole, no. But," Nikki laughed, noting down a detail of the blood-stained body in front of her, "I never did go for the 'riddled-with-bullets' type…"

"How boring of you…" Harry laughed, moving from one corpse to the next.

Seven bodies, riddled with bullets and drenched in their own blood, lay against the back wall of the garage. No one had heard the shootings – there was no doubt that they _were_ shootings, though – and no one had noticed that the bodies were there until well into the afternoon… Nikki and Harry, though, guessed that their charges had probably been shot around mid-morning… not only because of the scientific factors, but also because Nikki knew that the original Valentine's Day Massacre victims had been shot at 10:30am.

"What do you think happened?" was the first thing that the police had asked them. Harry and Nikki had merely rolled their eyes, and told them to Google the 'St Valentine's Day Massacre'. When the detective had come back to them twenty minutes later, he'd asked what kind of a weapon he should be looking for. Nikki, again, rolled her eyes, and said "Well, I'm thinking that Thompson Submachine guns are probably a little old-hat these days, but…"

"This is a copy-cat crime, DI Malone," Harry had added, trying to be a little bit more serious than his colleague. For once. "The likelihood is that the weapon used was as close a modern replica of the original as possible."

"Who would do this, though?" the DI had asked.

"Well," Nikki had replied, dryly, again, "I'm guessing that we're not dealing with Chicago mobsters this time around."

"No," Harry had confirmed, "that would just be silly."

"It is fascinating, though, isn't it?" Nikki asked Harry, later on that afternoon, as they zipped up the last body bags, "that people would repeat this kind of thing…"

"Mmm. Fascinating." Harry nodded, sounding anything but fascinated.

"What?" Nikki asked.

"Why," Harry wanted to know, "is it always us, eh?"

"What do you mean?" Nikki asked, again, falling into step behind Harry, and pulling off her latex gloves as they made their way back to his car.

"Well, why is it always us who has to deal with things like this? Why can't we ever just have a normal day at the office? Why, for that matter, do we both have to work on Sundays?" The momentum of what he was saying was steadily building, and Nikki could tell that it was going to come to a climax pretty soon; rather than interrupting him, she just let him rant it all out. From experience, she knew that this was the easiest, least confrontational option. "Why can't we have a normal Valentine's day?" Harry concluded, his fists balling up. He looked angry – or, more than angry, even. He looked furious. Irrationally furious, but furious never the less.

"Ah." Nikki commented, once he'd finished, "so, that's what's bugging you. Well, Harry, there are two reasons for the fact that we can't have an ordinary Valentine's day."

"And they are…?" he asked, without glancing at her. He was staring furiously ahead of him, even as they approached his car. Nikki was staring at Harry, as she replied, and so neither of them noticed the way that the police officer nearest them was staring at the so intently that he could have been painting a picture.

"Well," Nikki continued, "firstly, that normal Valentine's days are boring,"

"Clearly," Harry interrupted, "you would know. Because I'm sure that you've had many…" he was being sarcastic; something which Nikki chose to ignore. She didn't know the root of his sudden fury, and nor did she want to. She nodded, and said "I've had one or two" noncommittally before continuing with her point; "and the second, even more blindingly obvious reason that we can't have a normal Valentine's day, Harry, is that neither of us have partners to share a normal Valentine's day with."

"Hmmmff." Harry nodded, kicking the ground. He swore; apparently the ground was rather harder than expected.

**

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**

A/N: Sorry for the shortness of the chapter; I seem to slowly be killing my two best reviewers, and so I thought that a short update was probably better than no update! (:

Happy V-day, for tomorrow, by the way :)


	3. Moonshine

**Moonshine**

_Distracted… so easily distracted… If only we'd paid attention when we should have; if only we'd noticed the tiny details. They seemed so insignificant – so stupid – at the time… but they weren't. They were the key to it all…_

_*_

Pulling to a stop at a red light, on the way back to the lab, Harry turned to Nikki, and sighed. She chose to ignore this; ever since their Valentine's Day conversation, Harry had been acting like a spoilt child, and she couldn't work out why. She wasn't entirely sure whether she _wanted_ to work out why, either, and so, continuing to ignore him, she reached across and flicked on the car stereo, hoping (in vain) that there would be some music she could stand listening to on. Almost as soon as she'd switched it on, though, Harry leant across and turned it off, placing a hand on her arm to grab her attention. Rolling her eyes, she turned to him, without saying a word. "Nikki," he began, clearly contemplating his words very carefully indeed, "as it's Val – _shit_!"

He swore fiercely under his breath as he noticed the lights changing, and put his foot down a little too violently. He was surprised, in fact, that the car behind him didn't honk; he was driving recklessly, and the driver behind seemed entirely nonplussed.

All the way back to the lab, Harry sulked. Nikki couldn't help but find this slightly amusing; if a massacre hadn't been able to put the scale of his personal woes in proportion for Harry, nothing, she thought, was ever going to. She considered asking him what was wrong, but she thought that she probably knew: Harry was beginning to realise that he had lived most of his life pretty much alone. She wondered whether he had ever had a Valentine's day that he could spend with someone he loved – and she suspected that he hadn't.

Not, she added, mentally, that she had all that many. A couple of years at medical school had been spent with one guy, but aside from that, there had been no one serious – not serious enough to last through Valentine's day, anyway.

As Harry turned into the lab car park, swiping his ID to lift the barrier, a thought hit her, and made her smile. Maybe, just for one night, the two of them could go out, and ignore the romantic couples, and just have a good, friendly night…? That way, neither of them would be left moping at home, or checking over the slowly decomposing bodies at the morgue. Usually, she would have considered inviting Leo, too, but he and Janet were getting married in a couple of months, and so she didn't think that there was much chance of him being alone and miserable that night. But she and Harry could go out – just to the wine bar that they tended to haunt, for drinks and a meal, or something… nothing much; nothing out of the ordinary… but it would still be better than sitting at home alone, watching ancient romantic comedies and wondering if she was ever going to find someone to love her the way that she wanted to be loved.

She mentioned her idea to Harry as he parked, and within seconds his mood had lifted. If she hadn't known better, she thought to herself, he'd been waiting for her to suggest that… She smiled, anyway, and followed him back to the lab, almost looking forward to a long afternoon of bullet-hole analysis.

*

"So?" Leo asked, when they returned, dressed in fresh scrubs, and ready to head across to the cutting room, where the delightful task of identifying seven unidentifiable bodies awaited them.

"We were right." Nikki told him, sincerely, rolling her eyes when Harry added "of course".

"It was a copy-cat?" Leo asked, and the other two nodded.

"As good a copy-cat as I've ever seen." Harry said, tying his apron up, "but then, I don't know the details of the original case all that well. It's Little-Miss-Crime-Drama over here who you should be asking."

Nikki blushed visibly as he said this, and (for what seemed like the tenth time that afternoon) rolled her eyes at him again. She did have to concede, though, that she knew far more about the original case than he did – even down to the exact type of machine gun used. "Harry's right," she confirmed, "it is an incredibly good copy-cat. I've seen photos of the blood-splatter in the original case, and the replication here is uncanny… I am very interested to see what kind of gun was used, though… and who the hell these people are."

"Mobsters?" Leo asked.

"Could be." Nikki mused, "but not in the sense that they were originally." Harry glanced questioningly at her, and she sighed, perching on the edge of her desk to take the weight of her feet. She could see that she was going to have to detail the original crime for them again, despite what they superficially claimed to know about it.

"Ok," she said, in a falsely motherly voice, "are we sitting comfortably?" Leo and Harry stared daggers at her, implying that she should hurry the hell up, and she smirked, adding "then we'll begin." Harry threw a ball of paper at her, and it hit her squarely between the eyes. She scowled, ignoring one of the lab technicians when they said "good shot!" enthusiastically, and she carried on: "Valentine's Day 1929, the north side of Chicago. Prohibition-era America made gang warfare even more prevalent; rather than the drug barons, mafia dons or pimps that we tend to think of today, the gangs were dealing in illegal alcohol; moonshine. Gang rivalries caused by this were violent and bitter, and Chicago harboured the most notorious gangster of them all…"

"Al Capone." Harry said. Nikki nodded;

"Capone's gang were almost certainly behind the massacre; the deceased were seven members of a rival gang – the Irish-Polish Bugs Moran gang."

"Bugs Moran?" Leo asked, "oh, come on, Nikki. Bugs Moran; Bugsy Malone… don't you think you're getting things mixed up?"

"No." Nikki said, flatly; "'Bugsy Malone' is based on the Chicago gangs of that time. In a childish, custard-pie kind of way." Leo raised his eyebrows as if to say 'oh', but allowed Nikki to finish. "At 10:30 that morning, seven members of Moran's gang were invited to a garage on the North side of Chicago, where they were met by four men, two of them apparently police. They were discovered dead later that day."

"But who dunnit?" Harry asked, getting swept away by Nikki's story; she was an incredibly storyteller, he noted.

"No one knows. Capone almost certainly organised it, but whether it was his gang or another who perpetrated it, no one knows. He had people inside the police force, too, at the very highest levels…"

"We know _that_, Nikki." Leo smiled, "everyone knows that."

"You didn't know the rest" she pointed out, and Leo was forced to concede. "But, you see, the significance of that is that the two men might have been _real_ policemen. Moran's men clearly thought they were."

"How do you know?" Harry asked, intrigued.

"Well, there was no evidence of a fight –"

"Except for the seven men riddled with machine-gun bullets."

"No." Nikki said, smiling knowingly, "that's not evidence of a _fight_. Moran's men must have done _exactly_ what they were told. They were found in such a way that it was clear that they had been lined up facing the wall… and then just mown down. The blood splatter confirms it, too."

"Are you serious?" Harry asked, thinking of all of the parallels between the two cases.

"No," Nikki muttered, sarcastically, "no, Harry I'm joking. Of _course_ I'm bloody serious!"

Leo raised his eyebrows; if this was a copy-cat crime, it was a pretty serious, pretty scary one. They would all have to watch their backs pretty closely while they were working on this one… and they would have to be careful who they trusted with what they knew. In the police force, for example…

Leo voiced these concerns, but Harry and Nikki just shrugged; they both had other things on their minds. It was Sunday afternoon, and none of them really wanted to be in the cutting room, dealing with mutilated corpses, and, added to that, both Harry _and_ Nikki were wondering what their evening together would bring… neither of them would have admitted it, but they'd both been dreaming of an occasion like this for quite some time.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry if a lot of this is garbled history – I thought it would probably help y'all understand the story if you knew the background to the actual crime… :) **

**Reviews are very much appreciated.**

**And I think that, as it is, after all, Valentine's day, the we could all probably do with some fluff, right? :)**


	4. Distracted

**Distracted**

_The signs were all around us, and yet we were too easily distracted. Harry and I, that night, were living a dream, and we were too absorbed in it to notice all of the things around us, screaming at us, and shouting at us, and telling us that everything was night alright, actually._

_We were stupid; we were happy, and we were stupid…_

*

Pulling off his gloves, and dropping them into the bin, Harry followed Nikki out into the locker room. Her head was buried in her locker, but he could tell that she was smiling. They shouldn't, he thought, have anything to smile about; they'd just spent a couple of hours looking over two mutilated bodies, before Leo had told them that it was late, and it was Sunday, and it was Valentine's day, and that they should both bugger off home, and leave Charlie to lock the bodies up in the fridges for them to analyse the next day. They'd nodded and smiled and agreed, and both of them had felt their hearts raise slightly at the thought of spending their Valentine's evening together.

As Nikki came out of the showers half an hour later, dressed and looking, Harry thought absently, absolutely stunning in her trademark skinny jeans, heels and a beautiful, lacy blouse, Harry smiled, and stood up, pulling his jacket on, and fumbling in his pocket for his car keys. "Are you still on for tonight?" he asked, trying to sound casual; trying to sound as though his heart wasn't slamming in his chest the way that it was. Nikki nodded and smiled, wondering why he hadn't asked her _before_ he'd spent half an hour waiting for her to get ready… and then she remembered that this was, in fact, Harry that she was thinking about, and that none of the usual rules of social etiquette (or logic, for that matter) seemed to matter in his case. She crossed to her locker, and pulled out her own jacket and her handbag, shouldering it before smiling at Harry as she locked it. "So, where to?" she asked. Harry's lopsided smile as he replied did something very funny to her innards, and she could feel her cheeks reddening; she cursed herself for being so stupid. Yes, she thought, it _was_ Valentine's day, and they _were_ going out together, but that didn't mean anything. "The usual?" Harry asked, trying to seem casual and friendly as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"That sounds good to me," she laughed. There was something about Harry that made her perfectly, completely and utterly comfortable with everything – and she just couldn't put her finger on what it was. "How're we getting there?"

"Might as well only use one car…" Harry mused, pressing the button on his car-keys to unlock his, "save the planet and all. I'll drop you home later, alright?"

Nikki nodded, opening the passenger door and climbing in.

*

Oddly, the quiet little wine bar that they usually frequented was thronging with people. Harry and Nikki supposed that all of these people were regulars, and that they usually came at different times, but because it was Valentine's day, and because it was seven in the evening, they'd all accidentally materialised at once. The crowds all around – sitting at all of the tables, standing around, or at the bar, but always in couples – made it very easy, though, for someone to make themselves inconspicuous. People could easily blend in with the background here, provided that they had a partner, and, had Harry and Nikki been thinking properly – had they not been quite so absorbed in each other - they might have noticed that there was someone in this crowded room who clearly shouldn't have been; that there was someone watching every move they made.

*

_We didn't, though… we should have, but we didn't. I suppose that, now, it's too late to dwell on facts like that, because, after all, this has all happened; this is all in the past. Nothing anyone says or does is ever going to change that. Nothing…_

*

Instead of noticing what they should have noticed, then, Harry and Nikki stood at the bar, wondering how long they could stand staying in this crowded, bustling place. They weren't used to it being like this; it was _their_ haunt, and suddenly it was busy. It was odd. They bought drinks, never the less, and they talked and laughed and joked.

As Harry was ordering their second round of drinks, a smiley woman in her mid-forties, who looked harmless if a little out of place, was dragged towards the bar, giggling, by her partner. He, like Harry, proceeded to order drinks, and the woman turned to Nikki, smiling. She glanced from Nikki to Harry, and saw how close they were to each other, and how happy and serene they seemed to be in each other's company, and she automatically jumped to the conclusion that they must be married. She glanced at Nikki's left hand, which was on the bar on the side closest to her, to check her theory, and shook her head, confusedly; apparently not, then. She was nosy, in a motherly kind of way, and besides, she was bored; her husband was taking far too long dithering over different varieties of beer, and so she nudged Nikki gently in the side and nodded in Harry's direction. "How long have you two been together, then?" she asked. Nikki smiled, sadly; she was about to answer, honestly, when Harry turned to face them, draped an arm around Nikki's shoulder, and said, completely sincerely, "almost three years now, haven't we, Niks?"

Nikki's eyes widened, and she turned, astounded, to face Harry. He smiled playfully at her and winked; to him, she realised, sadly, this was all a joke. It could be fun, though, she mused, before turning back to the woman and rolling her eyes. "Men!" she exclaimed, sounding scandalised; "trust them to forget… it's three years to the day, now."

"To the day?" the woman asked, turning to face the two of them fully. She was smiling, and clearly blown away by the romance of the fact that their 'first date' had been on Valentine's day.

"Yes." Nikki nodded, smiling serenely. She couldn't help herself but lean up and kiss Harry gently on the lips; he, after all, was the one who'd started it, wasn't he?

Neither of them was prepared, though, for the way they felt in that moment; for the way that, even though Nikki had only pecked him, and even though the whole thing lasted only a matter of seconds, they could both _feel_ that kiss for minutes after it happened – and they could feel it from their heads down to their toes. As Nikki pulled away from him, their eyes met, and something seemed to pass between them – although neither of them could really have said what.

Nikki smiled turning back to the woman; "you'd have thought that someone who had his first date with his long-time girlfriend on Valentine's day would remember, wouldn't you?" The woman smiled, glancing from Nikki to Harry and back. They, she thought, clearly had something very special going on.

"That is just so beautiful." She told them; "when I first saw you, I thought that you were married –" (as she said this, Harry took a sip from his drink, and spluttered. The woman, luckily, didn't notice; but Nikki did… and she elbowed him in the stomach, again, whilst maintaining her happy façade for the woman) "- but then I saw that you don't have rings… still, if it means anything, coming from a complete stranger, I think that the two of you are perfect for each other. You really do have something amazing."

*

Harry's sofa, an hour and a half (and a bottle of wine and a half) later; happiness, laughter, drunkenness, and smiles. "Can you believe," Harry slurred, "that that woman really thought we were married?"

"I know," Nikki laughed, "any woman would have to be pretty damned crazy to marry you."

"What? Despite my evident charms?"

"Evident charms?" Nikki asked, not noticing how she had suddenly become so much closer to Harry, and how she was now glancing up into his eyes as she sipped from her glass.

"Oh, yes." Harry nodded, leaning across to the glass coffee table to pick up the bottle and top his glass up, "I mean, my intelligence and stunning good looks for one thing…"

"And for another thing?"

"Well…" Harry sighed, leaning back into the sofa and placing his glass and the bottle back on the table. He sat there for a good few minutes just thinking, with Nikki leaning close to him and staring intently up at him, before he lost all control. Whether he lost it to alcohol, or to the fact that he knew it was right, he couldn't have said, but in that moment he knew with complete clarity that the kiss they'd shared earlier that night had been completely and utterly right, and so he leant down and kissed Nikki again… and to his surprise, she kissed him back, leaning closer into him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

*

_Distracted… so easily distracted…_

_*_

When Nikki woke up, she wasn't entirely sure where she was. She could feel someone's arms around her, and she could feel a throbbing in her head, and she could feel that… that… that she was sitting up? Carefully, she opened one eye and then another, and blinked away the brightness and the pain of what she later identified as a pretty serious hangover, and she began to assess the situation. She was… on Harry's sofa. One of Harry's arms was around her, and she had, apparently, been using his shoulder as a pillow. One of her hands clutched a blanket that she couldn't remember ever having put there, and her other hand held… she smiled and sighed contentedly as she realised that, in her other hand, she held Harry's.

She couldn't remember, in that moment, though, _why_ she felt so content, knowing that she was in Harry's arms, and that she had clearly slept like this, too… until she felt Harry move behind her, and lean down to kiss her hair gently…

Something about that kiss resurrected memories from the night before; but instead of shying away from them, as she might usually have done, and she turned to glance up at him, and smiled.

* * *

**A/N: A present for you, because the last chapter was REALLY BORING. :) And because I probably won't update much this week (uni open days, fashion week and Grandma's 80th birthday. Um yay?) **

**Reviews are love x**


	5. Bodies

**Bodies**

"Nikki," Leo asked as his two younger colleagues wandered in at nine o'clock the next morning, "do I want to know why you're wearing one of Harry's shirts over yesterday's jeans?"

"That depends," Harry smiled, "on how bad you think we were."

"Ok, that is something I do not even want to _contemplate_! I did _not_ need that mental image, Harry… thank you."

Nikki smiled; "I fell asleep on Harry's sofa." She told her boss, "don't worry. Harry's just winding you up."

"That may well be true, Dr Alexander," Leo smiled, "but it's how you ended up on Harry's sofa which worries me."

"I'm not sure that you need to know that…" Harry smiled, suggestively, but Nikki just laughed:

"He got me drunk. That's all."

"Which is why you both look so rough this morning…?"

"Probably." Nikki nodded, allowing Harry to drag her through to the locker room; they still had seven bodies to inspect, and they needed to get a move on. The police, apparently, weren't treating the case lightly.

Leo watched as the two of them left the room, smiling slightly. He was glad to see that they were happy. They deserved to be happy. As he turned back to his computer, though, something struck him; even if Nikki had just fallen asleep on Harry's sofa because he'd gotten her drunk, something had definitely happened between them… no matter how innocent it might have been. Because they were holding hands as they walked in – in a way that friends tended not to. They weren't holding hands the way that you might hold a child's hand; they had their fingers intertwined in a way that only lovers tended to…

Leo smiled as he realised this. It was nice to know that they had finally worked each other out. It had certainly taken them long enough.

*

Twenty minutes later, Harry and Nikki were in the cutting room, with Charlie, who was helping them remove each of the massacre bodies from the fridges where they'd been stored over night. Something struck them, though, as they removed the bodies… and that was that there seemed to be one extra.

"Nikki, are you sure that there were only seven bodies yesterday?" Harry asked, an expression of confused amusement playing on his lips, and making Nikki wonder whether to hit him or kiss him. In the end, she chose neither option, raising her eyebrows at him instead. "Of course I'm sure, Harry. The thing about copycat crimes is that they tend to, you know, be copycats. And the St Valentine's Day Massacre definitely left seven people murdered."

"Yes, but ours didn't."

"What?" Nikki asked, turning to him, incredulously.

"There are definitely eight bodies here, Nikki."

"_Eight?_"

"Yes. Eight." Harry said, flatly, and Charlie nodded by way of confirmation.

"There were _not_ eight bodies here last night." Nikki told them, raising her voice slightly to make her conviction absolutely plain, "there were definitely only seven."

"Well… there aren't now…" Charlie said, nervously. "Definitely."

Something, Nikki realised, was wrong. Something was very wrong indeed. "Charlie," she said, "can you go and get the sign-in sheets from yesterday? And could you get Leo, too, for that matter? Tell him it's vitally important, and that he needs to bring his phone."

Panic was rising within her; Nikki had lived through enough drama, and read enough crime novels, to know the kind of thing that was likely to come next. Harry saw this, and smiled sadly, crossing the room to her. He placed a hand on each of her shoulders, and looked her directly in the eyes. "You're worried, aren't you?" he asked, and she nodded, nervously.

"Don't be." He told her, "there'll be a perfectly rational explanation. Someone will have labelled a body bag wrongly, or we might have miscounted the bodies, or something."

"We didn't miscount the bodies, Harry. You know that."

"We might have." He told her, gently. She was still shaking, and he was scared for her. She looked as though she was ready to do something stupid.

"We didn't."

"Well… even if there isn't a rational explanation for this," Harry said, noticing instantly how Nikki's face fell, and how she began shaking for more furiously. Hastily, he added "which I'm sure there is," before carrying on with his original point; "the police will be able to deal with it. And there'll be CCTV from the fridges, to show us what the hell has been going on." He paused a second, glancing down at Nikki sadly, and pulling her into a hug. She rested her head against his shoulder, still shaking, as he stroked her hair, trying to calm her. "It'll all be alright, Nikki… I know what you're thinking. You're shaking, which means that you're scared… you know the history, and you think that who ever is behind this crime is dangerous, and that they might be out to get you… but… I promise, Nikki, that I will never, ever let that happen. OK? I promise…"

Nikki nodded, sadly, pulling away from Harry. He stopped her, leaning down to kiss her softly on the lips; "I promise I will not let anyone hurt you, Nikki. I promise."

*

"Sign-in sheets." Charlie said, when she returned to the cutting room five minutes later. Harry and Nikki were still very close together, but they were no longer embracing, and so Charlie didn't see anything that she hadn't seen a hundred times before; nothing in what greeted her struck her as odd, and so she handed to sign-in sheets over with a smile, adding "Leo'll be through in a minute. He's just on the phone to Janet. Wedding details, I think."

Nikki smiled as she took the pile of papers from Charlie; it was nice that Leo had finally found someone who could make him happy again. Harry, however, said "I still can't believe they're getting married!"

"Why?" Charlie asked. "I've only seen them together a couple of times, but anyone can see that they're perfect together."

"I know… but after last time… I just didn't think he'd be able to go through with it again."

"Well, from what I overheard, it's definitely going ahead. It sounds as though they're even bringing the date forward a month or two, as well…"

"Wow…" Harry smiled, "well, I'm happy for them, I guess. I think I'm starting to understand how they feel about each other." He glanced involuntarily at Nikki as he said this, and Charlie widened her eyes in surprise – he'd as good as told Nikki that he intended to marry her, in that moment, and she hadn't even blinked.

They both looked at her more closely, then, and noticed the way that she was rifling through the papers in front of her, absolutely panic-stricken. Harry crossed to her, and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, asking "what is it, Nikki?" nervously.

"There are eight sign-in sheets here. And they all have my signature on." Nikki told him, her voice shaking almost as much as the hands which were holding the papers.


	6. Definitly

**Definitely**

"That…" Harry stuttered, "that _is_ your signature, Nikki…"

"I know." She said, leaning down so that her head touched the desk, in utter despair. "But I did _not_ sign in eight bodies from that scene."

"You made notes when you were there. Where are they?" Harry asked, realising that this could all be solved very quickly.

"My desk, top draw, reporters' notebook…" Nikki stuttered, sitting down, and leaning her head in her hands, trying to piece anything together; trying to work out what it was that they had missed at those crime-scenes earlier that day. Even if the extra body had been planted – which it clearly had, Nikki thought. How else would it have materialised? – then what on Earth were the perpetrators to gain from their being _an extra body_ present? She could understand why they might have _removed_ a body… but planting an extra? Why? What would possess anyone to do that?

She didn't even notice when Harry returned, until he gently prised her hands away from her face, and placed her notebook in front of her. "There." He said, smiling triumphantly, "check your notes, and prove all those sign-in sheets wrong."

Nikki smiled up at him. "Thank you, Harry." She said, opening the notebook and scanning the pages. She read the first line on the first page five times before she froze; her notes confirmed what the sign-in sheets said. He notes confirmed it all… and that was _definitely_ her handwriting… how? How did…? What?

She read it again;

**12:15pm, Feb14 2010, Islington**

St Valentine's Day Massacre copy-cat – 8 bodies, shot, in garage…

And then a list of the details of each independent body's most obvious features… and it was all in her handwriting. But… she hadn't written it. She _hadn't_ written it… none of this… none of it made sense. What was going on? What was happening? Why? Why would anyone do this? Why? Why and how?

Suddenly, it all became too much, and Nikki felt her stomach convulse; clapping her hand to her mouth, she ran from the room, and was to be discovered five minutes later in the women's toilets, her head swimming, and with an empty stomach.

It was Charlie who was sent to find her, and what she saw scared her; Nikki was white as a sheet, leaning up against the sinks with her hands clawing the tiles almost viciously. Whatever she had seen in that notebook, and whatever she had realised, had obviously scared her pretty badly indeed. "Dr Alexander?" Charlie asked, apprehensively. She smiled comfortingly as Nikki looked up, before adding "Dr Cunningham and Professor Dalton are outside. They wanted me to check if you minded them coming in…?" Nikki shook her head vaguely, and Charlie nodded, turning and half-running out of the toilets, to find her superiors.

Seconds later, Harry's arms were around Nikki, and her head was buried in his neck, and she was crying openly. He stroked her hair, and made shushing noises, trying to calm her. Eventually, she pulled away, breathing normally again, and wringing her hands. "I'm sorry if I scared you…" she mumbled, causing Harry and Leo to shake their heads in wonder at her.

"You have nothing to be sorry for…" Harry told her, wiping a tear from her eye with the flat part of his thumb, "we're worried about you, that's all."

"It's… it's my notebook… it confirms it…" Nikki breathed deeply as she spoke, willing herself not to hyperventilate (or vomit) again, "and I don't remember writing any of that…"

"We'll check the CCTV, Nikki," Leo said, calmly, "but if your notes confirm it, then I don't think that there can be an question –" Nikki cut him off, shouting angrily at him for even having considered that she might be in the wrong;

"I _didn't_ write it." She told him, "there were _definitely_ only seven bodies yesterday. I remember it; I am _certain_. Please, Leo, don't doubt me…"

"I'm not, Nikki…" he told her, "but if your notes confirm it then I don't think that there is anything we can do."

"We can tell the police." She said, glancing imploringly at Harry. She didn't know yet how much power that gaze would have on him, but she was hoping that what had passed between them since the evening before would give her some leverage, and she was pleased to note that Harry got the message, and said "I think we should tell them, Leo, I really do…"

*

Why? Why did we go to the police? That was the first mistake; we knew that we were right, and we should have kept that knowledge to ourselves. We knew the history; we knew the facts… and we should have known what they were going to lead to, too… But we didn't.

The net was growing tighter, and it was all only just beginning.

*

Hours later, Nikki had calmed down slightly. She'd made a report to the police, and she'd told them everything she knew, and she and Harry had inspected a further three bodies, finding no inconsistencies to suggest that any of them had been planted. They'd made their notes, and decided that, for safety's sake, as well as for Nikki's peace of mind, they should take all their notes home with them from now on.

They were sitting in the main office, at their desks, typing up details of previous cases, and trying to push the Valentine's massacre from their minds, when Leo walked in, and smiled at them. "So," he said, "with all the confusion this morning, I never did get the chance to find out exactly where you two stand…"

"Well," Harry said, "generally we prefer to stand on the floor. Although, given the height of most of Nikki's heels, I'm not sure if that always counts, in her case…"

"Be serious. Are you two… are you…?" Harry stared at Leo, widening his eyes as if to tell him to spit it out; Leo winced. "Are you two an item, then?" he asked, eventually.

Harry glanced at Nikki, and Nikki glanced at Harry, and neither of them said a word. Eventually, Harry said, "Nikki, are we an item?"

Nikki smiled slightly; "do you want us to be?"

"Do you?"

"Do you ever answer questions?"

"Usually, yes. In this case, I am reluctant to," Harry conceded, "in case I have completely the wrong impression."

"What impression would that be, then, Dr Cunningham?" Nikki asked, smiling coyly at him, and causing Leo to smile knowingly.

"I'll take that as a 'yes' then." He laughed. "I'm sorry for being nosy, I just wanted to know how much… awkwardness I can expect to experience in the near future…"

"Oh, a fair bit, I should say…" Harry smiled, taking Nikki in his arms, and kissing her passionately.

"Yes…" Leo nodded, averting his eyes, "I should say so."

"Is there a point to this discussion?" Harry asked, eventually, and Leo shrugged;

"Janet and I wondered if the pair of you wanted to come round for dinner tomorrow night." Leo told them, "but I wanted to check whether or not you would be… amenable."

"What?!" Nikki asked, laughing.

"Well, you never know… something clearly happened between the pair of you last night, but if it was a cause of tension, I wasn't sure you'd be willing to come together."

"Oh," Nikki smiled, "we're more than willing."

"That's what I thought." Leo laughed.


	7. Evidence

**Evidence**

"So," Janet began, as she and Nikki sat on the sofa in her living room, waiting for Harry and Leo to bring the drinks through, "you're absolutely certain that someone has, what? Planted a body?"

"Yes." Nikki nodded, smiling slightly at the absurdity of it.

"Why?"

"We're not really sure. The police still haven't let us autopsy all of the bodies yet, which is very, very weird; it's been two days now. Apparently our other, more boring cases are far more important…"

"That does sound… suspicious." Janet nodded, taking the glass that Leo passed her as he sat down.

"You're not talking about _this_ again, are you, Nikki?" Harry asked, unsure of whether or not he should laugh or cry. Nikki just took her glass of wine from him, and sipped it, allowing him to wrap an arm around her, without responding.

"I think Nikki has a point, you know, Harry." Janet told him, "there is definitely something odd going on there."

"See!" Nikki exclaimed, triumphantly. She had been about to stick her tongue out at him, childishly, until she realised that doing so might detract slightly from her serious argument in Janet's mind.

"Leo?" Janet asked, clearly expecting him to side with them over Harry.

"Well, I don't know. It certainly seems odd… but the paperwork does counter Nikki's argument –"

"I DID NOT SIGN THOSE FORMS!"

"- and the fact that there's nothing odd on the CCTV doesn't exactly back you up, either, Nikki…" he concluded, trying to ignore the fact that both women were staring daggers at him.

"If looks could kill…" Harry commented, smiling placidly as he pulled Nikki closer to him and began absently playing with her hair, in a vague attempt to calm her down.

"Then autopsies would be very difficult indeed…" Nikki laughed, turning to kiss him on the cheek. Her anger seemed to have eased temporarily; she was still on a warpath, but she could see that she was fighting a losing battle, and so she was happy to leave it for the moment. Besides which, she had a plan – but she wasn't going to tell anyone that. Instead, she turned back to Leo and Janet, who were on the other sofa, and placidly commented on the fact that their dinner, which was in the oven, smelt good. Harry nodded in agreement, but there was something else playing on his mind; it was a Tuesday evening, and he genuinely wondered why it was that Janet and Leo wanted to see them, anyway. He voiced this question soon after it came to him, and Janet and Leo turned to each other, smiling genuine, dreamy smiles, their eyes connected for just a few seconds too long before they turned back to the younger couple. "Well…" Leo said, nudging Janet, as though asking her to tell them:

"You know that we've been engaged for a while now, and that we've been trying to put off choosing a date?" Janet asked; Nikki and Harry nodded. "Well," Janet continued, "we've picked one. Next Saturday."

Nikki and Harry stared at her in shock; "_Next_ Saturday?" Harry asked, and Leo nodded.

"We decided that we didn't want a big, fancy ceremony. We've both been through that before, and, well, it didn't exactly work out for us, did it?" He took Janet's hand, and squeezed it as he spoke. She smiled, in response, shifting closer to him and leaning her head against his shoulder. "So," he continued, "that's why we asked you both here tonight. We're just going to the registry office, and then out for a meal; it'll still be special, it just won't be fancy or big… and, well, we wondered if you two would mind witnessing for us?"

"Us?" Nikki asked, sitting up, shocked.

"Yes." Janet smiled; "we couldn't think of anyone better than you two. We'd be honoured if you two would be there with us on our special day."

"Really?" Harry asked, mirroring Nikki's shock. When both Leo and Janet nodded again, the younger pair agreed, of course, and stood up to hug their boss and his fiancé. It was unexpected – but it was _nice_… unlike the last unexpected thing to happen to them.

Temporarily, Nikki's mind moved from the case at hand, and she allowed herself to relax and enjoy the evening, without fear of what that extra body could mean.

*

By morning, though, her mind was back on the case. She was glad, in a way, that she'd driven herself to Leo's the previous night, and that she'd remained under the drink-driving limit, because if she hadn't, she'd almost certainly have ended up in a taxi back to Harry's house… not that she would have objected to spending the night with Harry (the very thought gave her butterflies); it was just that she knew what she needed to do, now, and in order to do that she had to be the first person to the lab. She had to open up, early, and beat all the technicians. She needed to do exactly what it was that she had been forbidden from doing, and she needed to do it before anyone arrived so that she could have a theory ready before they could stop her. Essentially, she needed to _autopsy the bodies_.

She was a little uncomfortable with going against what the police had told her, but as she pulled in to the lab car-park and swiped her ID at 4:30am, she was firm and resolute; everything was fixed in her mind.

She parked, and climbed from the car, and as she unlocked the lab, she was careful to turn all the lights on; something weird was going on, and, much as she tried to breathe steadily and convince herself that she wasn't scared, she knew, in her heart, that she was quivering. If the lights were on, though, she would see anything that happened. She was careful, too, to turn the key disabling all of the doors from the inside. She knew that is someone was skulking around she would now be locked in with them – but it was better to take that small, insignificant risk than take the other; it was better to risk that than risk letting people walk in on her before she'd finished the autopsies. She checked her watch as she dumped her bag on her desk, and noted that she had about three and a half hours before a technician or other arrived, and began wondering why they couldn't get in, and then rang Leo, or worse still, the police. Or her.

In her haste to get to into her scrubs, she didn't notice the way that several of the papers on her desk were missing – and that her previously tidy piles were spread haphazardly across the whole table. She wouldn't notice this, in fact, until Harry arrived, later, and by that point she could easily attribute the mess to him. He had the annoying habit of dumping things on her desk at random and expecting them to file themselves, and so, by that point, the evidence would be unnoticeable.

* * *

**A/N: Can't remember is Janet was ever married before… she was now! ;) Oh, and sorry if Janet and Leo are **_**massively**_** OOC! They're necessary to the plot, which is kind of annoying as I very definitely **_**can't**_** write them! .**

**Reviews would be lovely… *hint hint***


	8. Anomalies

**Two updates in about an hour... hmm, sorry about that. I won't be able to update for a while, now, y'see, and so I want to leave you with a suitably worrying cliffhanger ;) Lucky you!**

* * *

**Anomalies**

_Secretiveness should have worked. But I wasn't thinking, was I? I didn't have every detail correct in my mind – I missed the most obvious thing, and I left records behind me. They would find out. They would know. They would _always_ know._

_*_

"Nikki?" Leo asked, shocked, as he opened the doors to the lab at half past eight that morning. Nikki didn't even glance up in surprise; she'd heard almost exactly the same thing from the three lab technicians who had arrived shortly after eight o'clock, and each time she'd been addressed she'd merely smiled and shrugged as if to say 'oh yes, I'm early. There's a surprise'. When she realised it was Leo who was addressing her, this time, though, she took a deep breath; she was going to have to show him what she'd found. Smiling at him, she opened her top desk draw, and lifted out her the disk on which the recording of her commentary on the four autopsies she'd conducted, hastily, that morning, was recorded.

"What's this, Nikki?" Leo asked, apprehensively, when she passed it to him; she just shrugged, hoping that he'd listen to it. She was too tired for discussion or argument. Sighing, Leo left the room, and crossed to his office, leaving Nikki free to lay her head down on her desk, and curl her arms underneath it, as a pillow, to sleep.

*

The first three times Leo shouted her name, Nikki didn't hear. She had actually fallen asleep at her desk, and it took Harry throwing a pen at her to wake her up. She blinked hard, wondering what on Earth she was doing at work when she should be in bed, before she remembered. And then she heard Leo shout her name again, and she stumbled to her feet, grabbing Harry by the arm to drag him to Leo's office with her – for scientific if not moral support.

"So?" Leo asked, playing the part of a stern head teacher as Nikki sat down opposite him. She merely blinked in response; surely the disk had explained everything that she possibly could. Leo repeated his question again, however, elaborating this time; "so, are you going to tell me what on Earth this is about?"

"I think that the recording should explain that." Nikki stated, calmly. She'd been preparing herself for this moment as she drove to work far, far earlier that morning, and she had anticipated Leo's mood and reactions perfectly. She knew that behind the façade, he was as fascinated as she was, and that he really wanted her to cut to the chase sooner rather than later.

"It does. But are you going to tell me why you disobeyed police orders in order to make the recording?" Leo asked, a flash of his normal-self creeping through as he spoke. Before Nikki had the chance to respond, however, Harry did; "WHAT?!" he almost yelled, in absolute horror, "you did _what_, Nikki?"

"I autopsied the remaining bodies." Nikki stated, plainly and calmly; there was no point in allowing her emotions to play a part in what was happening, because, frankly, she knew that that wouldn't do her any good at all.

"Why?" Harry asked, incredulous.

"Because," she said, turning behind her so that she was looking at him rather than Leo, "I knew that the only way I could prove that there were _definitely_ only seven bodies originally was to carry out an autopsy."

"And did you?" Harry asked, perplexed more than incredulous, now.

"No…" Nikki conceded, wistfully, turning back to Leo.

"She found something even more intriguing, though…" Leo told him, unable to contain his fascination beneath the veneer of strictness any longer.

"Oh?" Harry asked, and Nikki smiled, in such a way as to question how either of them had ever doubted her.

"Well, there were several anomalies in the bodies I looked at." She explained; "I autopsied four more, because we'd already looked at four, and what I found in _two_ of them was consistent with what we found before."

"Oh?" Harry asked, crossing to perch on the corner of Leo's desk, so that he could read Nikki's expressions as she spoke.

"Oh indeed…" Leo echoed, a knowing edge to his tone.

"Yes." Nikki continued, smiling; she hadn't expected them to listen to her so readily, yet. She'd expected to have to put up a fight… but they were drinking in what she was telling them with a fascination which made her wonder why they objected to her reading crime novels – the nitty-gritty, gory horrors and mentalities behind the crimes clearly intrigued them just as much as they did her. "The other two bodies were different, though; the times of death were different, for one thing, as were the bullets used to shoot them. Whoever planted them was hoping to throw us off so much with the extra body that we wouldn't investigate them fully."

"What?" Harry asked, leaning forward to survey Nikki's expression.

"The anomalies I've already mentioned, as well as the evidence on the actual bodies themselves – one of which was female, and the other of which was far older than the rest – suggest to me that both were planted."

"Why?" Leo asked. Nikki clearly had a well-considered theory in her mind, and he was beginning to accept that it might very well be true.

"Well," Nikki began, pausing for thought, "I've been thinking about this… and the only explanation I can come up with is that when the two bodies were planted, one of the original bodies, which harboured more evidence than the perpetrators were willing to give away, was taken."

"Why would they plant _two_ extra, though?" Harry wondered aloud.

"To confuse us. To make us ask why. To delay us working out the truth." Nikki suggested, and Leo shrugged:

"Could be, I suppose…" he conceded, "but I still wish you'd waited for the police to give this the all-clear, though…"

"You still don't get it, do you?" Nikki asked; "in the original case, the police were almost certainly in on it… and just when something interesting crops up, they don't ask the appropriate questions, and they stop us from carrying out the autopsies we need to in order to find evidence…"

"Nikki," Leo asked, "you're not suggesting that the police are involved in this case, too, are you?"

"Yes." Nikki stated, plainly, "I think that they might well be."

*

"_Really, Nikki?"_ the elder man asked, his raised voice causing the speakers to crackle slightly, _"I think you've spent too much time watching CSI…"_

"_That's not fair, Leo,"_ the younger man stated, calmly; he seemed to be trying to smooth things over. The man at the desk with the headphones attached to the equipment in the darkened room noted this down, alongside everything else, and he smiled; they had already found the woman's weakness, but they hadn't expected the younger man's to be so easy; it was _too_ easy, really. The younger man's statement had just confirmed what they had ascertained on Sunday – but that needed doing, anyway.

If he didn't know better, the man at the desk with the headphones attached to the equipment in the darkened room would have thought that they were already one step ahead… because they were making this all _too easy…_

* * *

**A/N: Please do tell me if I'm boring you to death. I seem to be getting way too bogged down in autopsies and science which I don't understand! :-/**


	9. Problems

**A/N: For everyone who asked for it! (: There'll be another one or two tomorrow, but then I'm going to Fashion Week, so I'll not be posting until Sunday/Monday, m'afradid :) X**

* * *

**Problems**

Friday rolled around, and still nothing was heard about the oddest case any of the pathologists had ever dealt with. Harry and Leo seemed to take this as a good sign; the police clearly weren't interested, and besides, it was Leo and Janet's wedding the next day. They were both, secretly, hoping that Nikki would forget all about the case because of the wedding – but, in typical style, their plan was foiled when the police turned up at the Lyle Centre at lunchtime. Nikki and Harry had gone out; Harry was determined to take Nikki's mind off Valentine's Day and massacres and planted bodies, and so he'd decided that lunch was in order. Leo, too, was out; leaving just Charlie and a couple of other technicians around the place for an hour or so. Usually, this wouldn't have been a problem, but, in this case, it was.

Nikki, of course, had been right all along. The police _were_ involved in the case; but Charlie wasn't to know, and so when the dashing young DSI Jenkins wandered into the offices, asking for Doctor Alexander, she'd blushed and shrugged and mumbled words to the effect that Doctor Alexander was out, and would be back soon. The dashing young DSI, who was, of course, tall, dark and handsome, with the kind of eyes usually seen searing into souls in films, smiled at Charlie, and shrugged, asking if, perhaps, Professor Dalton or Doctor Cunningham might be around, instead.

Charlie, of course, didn't know the details of the case; how could she? Nikki was being very careful about who she told, and she wasn't willing to tell just anyone. So, it was hardly fair, later on, for Nikki to blame Charlie for having given some silly facts away;

"I'm afraid, sir, that Doctor Cunningham is with Doctor Alexander at the moment." She smiled, prettily, wishing that she was dressed in something rather more flattering than scrubs, and waited for a reply. The DSI seemed to be considering this; Charlie wondered whether he was another in Doctor Alexander's long line of admirers? She wouldn't have been surprised; as Doctor Cunningham was so fond of pointing out, half the metropolitan police was after Doctor Alexander. Charlie couldn't decide if that was a gift or a curse.

"Hmmm…" DSI Jenkins mused, wandering, seemingly absently, over to Nikki's desk, where he began to shift papers around with the tips of his fingers. The way he did this was calculated and clever; they'd picked a dashing, young DSI because he wouldn't be suspicious, and so if he was careful, and made it look like he was shifting the papers without ever actually noticing what he was doing, he should get away without raising suspicions once. And, he did – just. "Is Professor Dalton with them, do you know?"

"Oh," Charlie gushed, "no, I shouldn't think so. He's getting married tomorrow, and so I suppose he's preoccupied…"

"I suppose he is, yes." DSI Jenkins nodded, marvelling at how that detail hadn't reached them. Apparently they were being careful about what they said; either they'd all caught Doctor Alexander's 'worry bug', or this wedding was _supposed_ to be a secret.

DSI Jenkins smiled at Charlie again, before he sat down at Nikki's desk. "Do you mind if I wait for them?" he asked, and Charlie, as he'd known she would, shook her head. "It's just that," he continued, "I really need to speak to Doctor Alexander about her _two-of-the-bodies-were-planted_ theory…"

"Two of the bodies?" Charlie asked, shocked. She'd not even heard _that_ theory.

"Oh, yes." DSI Jenkins said, in the same, sultry, beautiful voice as before, "apparently she's gone all CSI on us."

"Wouldn't surprise me." Charlie laughed, "apparently all she does in reality is read crime books and watch crime shows…"

"You think it's finally gotten to her?" he asked, brushing the mouse on Nikki's computer with the back of his hand, hoping that she'd just left it to stand-by of it's own accord. And… she hadn't. Damn.

"Maybe." Charlie shrugged, pulling her latex gloves back on, "maybe not. She's an excellent pathologist, and she seems to have the kind of mind that can understand criminals' motives, so I wouldn't be surprised if she was right, to be honest."

"Hmmm…" DSI Jenkins mused, again. Something had just struck him; he'd just realised that he'd said too much, and that he should probably get out while he still could. The Lyle Centre policy dictated that guests had to leave their ID in reception, and he didn't want to risk them withholding it once they figured him out… which, by the sound of things, would be as soon as the mysterious Doctor Alexander reappeared. Which, he guessed, glancing at his watch, would probably be quite soon indeed. "Thank you, Miss… err?"

"Charlie." She smiled, holding her hand out for him to shake, "just Charlie."

"Thank you, Charlie," he smiled, taking her hand she offered. The feel of the gloves on his skin was very strange, and so he let it go as soon as was polite, smiling as he finished his statement; "can you tell Doctor Alexander that I'll be in touch?" He leant down and plucked something from her desk; a small square of card. Smiling, he concluded "I have her card."

*

Half an hour later, Nikki and Harry reappeared, their arms around each other, grinning massively. Before they re-entered the lab, Harry leant down and pressed a kiss to Nikki's lips, smiling. "Thank you." He told her.

"What for?"

"For coming with me. For being you. For letting me talk at you for an hour straight."

"No problem." She grinned, kissing him back, "and thank _you_."

"What for?" he echoed, pulling her through the door and into the lab.

"For letting us do this. At last." She grinned, leaning up to kiss his neck (the only part of him that she could comfortably reach), "and for letting us do this _properly_."

"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling slightly and pulling her closer to him.

"Well, you know… we've known each other so long that it would kind of be natural to skip the 'dating' phase of proceedings. But we haven't. And I like that."

"Me too." He told her, kissing her properly one last time, before he shrugged his coat off and pushed her towards her desk. "Now," he said, "sit. Work. At _your_ desk. I know it's a novel experience for you, but you never know; you might like it."

She rolled her eyes at him (this time _not_ resisting the urge to stick her tongue out), and began rearranging her papers, once again not noticing how they were not as she had left them. She didn't really have the chance to, though, as Charlie came in at that moment, and shouted across the offices to get her attention. She glanced up, still smiling her beatific _I've-just-been-on-a-lovely-date-with-my-lovely-boyfriend_ smile, and Charlie began her story, carefully omitting just how dashing and tall-dark-and-handsome the DSI in question was. Nikki had a boyfriend; she didn't need the details, which Charlie was carefully filing away in her mind, for a later date.

"Wait a second," Nikki said, a moment later, holding her hand up to halt Charlie mid-story, "repeat that again." Charlie shrugged, nonplussed, and did as she was told:

"He said that he'd come to see you about your theory that two bodies had been planted."

Nikki froze; "I thought that's what you'd said." She told Charlie, "thank you."

With that, she shot out of her seat, and ran through the offices (in a way Charlie could only describe as admirable, given the height of her heels) to the cutting room, where she knew she'd find Harry, busy with another boring case from the day before. She leant up against the doorway, taking a deep breath, and readying herself to tell him.

And then she realised that she couldn't do that. Because they _must_ be listening; that was the _only_ way that they could know what was going on. The _only_ way…

Instead of telling him there and then, she took his hand, and pulled him from the room, ignoring his "Nikki, this is not the time or place" jokes, as she dragged him to her desk. She could probably type faster than she could write, and so she pulled up a blank document, typing something in large letters. Then, she nudged Harry and pointed to the screen, satisfied with the gasp of surprise that he made when he read what she'd written:

**We have been bugged. **


	10. Notes

**A/N – just for this chapter: centred text is what's being typed on Nikki's computer. Bold text is Nikki; regular is Harry; italics is Leo :)**

* * *

**Notes**

The stunned look on Harry's face said it all; and he was about to speak – to ask how she knew – when she glowered at him. She'd known. Of course, what he was about to say. And she'd known when to stop him. He smiled, slightly; it was a bad time to be smiling, but he smiled nonetheless. Nikki knew him better than he knew himself…

He nodded at her to make her see that he understood, and she leant out of the way, so that he could access her keypad:

'How do you know?'

Nikki glanced at him and rolled her eyes. Trust him to ask _that_ first. Nevertheless, she leant across and began to type again:

**'Charlie just told me that a DSI Jenkins came to see us whilst we were… out.'**

'And?'

**'And he knew more than he should. He told her about my "two bodies were planted" theory.'**

Nikki heard a satisfactory response from Harry, standing behind her, as he read that; he breathed in, sharply, and glanced down at her, fear in his eyes.

**'So, now you believe me…'**

She typed, and Harry nodded. He did believe her. He had, he supposed, almost believed her all along, be he had been reluctant to accept it. This, though, was near-enough solid evidence. He wracked his brains, trying to think of something to say to reassure her, or to keep her from panicking, until he noticed that she _wasn't_ panicking. She was calmly basking in the fact that she had been right all along, and, oddly, she was enjoying the moment. It was almost as if all of those hours of CSI: Miami, or whatever else it was she watched, had finally paid off. It was almost as if she was calculating what "the baddies" would do next…

As he watched her, marvelling at how cool, calm and controlled she was when she should, by rights, have been panicking again, a thought struck him, and he froze for a second, balancing it out in his mind. It _was_ possible, wasn't it? If all of Nikki's conspiracy theories could be correct, why couldn't his?

He didn't like that his mind was suddenly working this way, but he couldn't help it. At times like this, telling the truth and putting forward every conspiracy theory possible was probably for the best. Reluctantly, and bracing himself for any possible retribution to what he was about to type, he leant forward and began:

'What if we're not just bugged?'

he wrote. Nikki turned round to face him, then, panic etched across her face, now. She pulled her hair back, quickly, into a rough ponytail, and Harry sighed. He knew what that meant. It meant that she meant business.

'What if,'

he added,

'they've got cameras? Or there's actually a mole in the team?'

**'WHAT?!?!?!?!?'**

Nikki typed, incredulous: she could accept the CCTV cameras theory. People _could_ be watching them. That would make sense. But a _mole_?! She knew that Harry thought she watched too much CSI, but she was beginning to think that maybe he had a secret soft-spot for Spooks. A _mole…_ Really!

'Niks, it _could_ be real…'

**'BUT A MOLE?!?!'**

Harry grimaced; he hadn't been expecting her to react this way. He'd been expecting her to agree, wholeheartedly. He'd been expecting her to accept his theory. He glanced down at her, downhearted, and noticed that she was thinking again, and that she was thinking hard. She was clearly running it all through her head, and she was beginning to join up the dots…

**'I don't _think_ we have a mole'**

she wrote,

**'but we might. And so I'm not risking it. I don't know about you, but I want to get to the bottom of this case. The original case remains unsolved, and I would hate for more of the same to happen.'**

Harry knocked her hand away from the keypad at that point, smiling wryly as he leant down to type another message of his own, his eyebrows raised;

'Nikki against the world, anyone? ;)'

'**Oh ha ha haaa'**

she wrote, glancing up at him with a smile which almost exactly mirrored his own on her face. It was nice, she thought, that despite… _everything_ that was going on, they still had each other.

'No,'

Harry wrote, confirming what she'd just thought:

'this time, it's _us_ against the world'

Nikki glanced up at him, and smiled. It was really, really good to know that, at last, she had his full support on this case. It meant more to her than he could ever know, and so she stood up, and snaked her arms around his neck, and whispered "thank you" in his ear, and kissed him…

And then Leo coughed, causing the pair of them to spring apart guiltily. They both smiled at him, and he rolled his eyes. "I see you two are still very much together, then?" he asked, and they grinned.

"Yes." Nikki smiled, "I don't think you can escape 'us' that easily, this time."

"Yeah," Harry replied, grinning, too "we've had _dates_ and everything, this time!"

"Wow…" Leo mocked, "doing things conventionally. How unlike you!"

He paused for a moment, giving them the chance to laugh at his terrible joke before he continued, more seriously, this time;

"Now, I've been thinking."

"Dangerous…" Harry joked, snaking an arm around Nikki's waist. Leo rolled his eyes, and persevered;

"About this case…"

Nikki froze, as he said that; whatever he was going to say _could not_, could NOT, could not be recorded by the bug. She waved her arms frantically at him, and elbowed Harry, who understood instantly; he leant across to her desk, and scrawled "WE HAVE A BUG" on the first piece of paper he could find. Unfortunately, it was one of Nikki's completed reports – but she didn't even care. That fact alone was enough to show Leo how serious they were about this.

Nikki crossed to him, and grabbed his sleeve, dragging him to the computer. She showed him the conversation she and Harry had been having; he read it with interest, but rolled his eyes as he typed a response;

'_You two do realise that there's an easier way to do this?'_

They both glanced at him, confused, as he wrote his next sentence;

'_Go somewhere else to talk.'_

"Oh yeah…" Harry laughed, rolling his eyes at their own stupidity. Nikki, though, was having none of it, and she reached to her computer again, typing another message;

**'We have to give them a decoy. We have to tell them that we're going somewhere to talk about it, and then go somewhere else.'**

'_Don't you think you're taking this a _little _too far, Nikki?'_

Leo asked, as he read what she'd written, and she scowled:

**'NO!!!!! IF THIS IS ANYTHING LIKE THE ORIGINAL CASE – WHICH IT WOULD APPEAR THAT IT IS!!!! – THEN WE HAVE TO COVER OUR TRACKS. WE HAVE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT WITHOUT THEM KNOWING.**

**_WE HAVE TO!!!!_'**

Leo seemed slightly disbelieving, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle; Harry and Nikki were operating as a single unit, now, and he couldn't afford to argue with them, so he said "right, then, you two," in the most authoritative tone that he could manage, "I'll see you tonight, at that wine bar you so love, at what?"

"Eight?" Harry asked, playing along.

"Sure. We need to discuss that case…"

Nikki rolled her eyes, typing again;

**'You two are the worst actors in the history of time. No one will be fooled by that.'**

'Ouch'

Harry typed, laughing. Nikki hit him playfully, before typing the next part of her message;

**'I know that you're getting married tomorrow Leo, but I do think we need to talk this through _before_ then'**

Harry batted her arm away from the keypad, laughing, and added;

'Because, otherwise, Nikki will talk of nothing else _all through the ceremony_'

**'HEY!'**

'It's true.'

**'Yeah, I guess…'**

She laughed,

'**So, how about we all meet up at mine straight after work?'**

Harry nodded, but Leo looked apprehensive;

**'Janet can come. It might be useful to have a psychoanalyst there'**

Nikki added,

**'And, besides, you're hardly having a conventional wedding. So you can't complain that I'm interrupting your stag night.'**

"Actually," Leo laughed, "you are. Harry and I were going to go to the pub and get absolutely blind-drunk."

"Because that's a good idea…" Nikki smiled.

"It is." Harry assured her, "it _really_ is…"

* * *

**A/N: Sorry – no updates for a couple of days; Grandma's birthday party and LFW. I'm excited about _one_ of these things. Take your pick ;)**

**I'll update as soon as I can, though; promise. Chapter 11 is all ready to go when I get back, too. (I keep waking up in the middle of the night with plot ideas. It is driving me MENTAL. Ha ha) xxx**


	11. Testing

**Testing**

_Think, Nikki! Come on, _think_! You should have worked so much more out by now, but you haven't! You should be at the bottom of all of this, but you're not! You shouldn't be letting them beat you…_

_Come ON!!_

_*_

"Charlie!" Nikki yelled, crashing into one of the junior technicians as she chased her colleague, "Charlie!"

Eventually, Charlie heard her, and ran down the corridor to meet her, a look somewhere between shock and horror plastered on her face. "Y-yes?" she asked, nervously, ever-so aware of the catastrophic error that she may have made earlier in letting the DSI walk away. Nikki, though, just smiled at her, relieved to find her still around. Leo and Harry had already left for the night, with the whispered promise that they would see her an hour or so later, for stress, drinks, and time for Nikki to go "all CSI on us again". Nikki, though, was determined that this wasn't going to happen – sure, the drinks would be nice, but Leo was getting married the next day, and didn't need the stress, or her CSI-like theories. She had been hell-bent on running things by them earlier in the day, but that afternoon she'd hit on a better solution. Or, she thought she had. She just needed one thing, and that was why she was chasing Charlie down the corridors with quite so much passion.

"Oh, thank God…" she breathed, leaning up against a wall and smiling, scaring her younger colleague slightly.

"What?" Charlie asked, apprehensive, but Nikki shook her head, regaining her breath.

"Charlie," Nikki began, breathing deeply and running a hand through her hair, a tell-tale sign of stress, "when the DSI arrived, earlier, what were you doing?"

"I don't… I…" Charlie stuttered, still unsure of whether or not she was in trouble.

"Charlie," Nikki repeated, "I really need you to think about this. I _need_ to know. It could be really important."

"Why?" Charlie asked, horrified.

"It just could. _Please_ Charlie…"

"I was… I was about to finish stitching up a body…"

"_A_ body?"

"One of the natural-causes deaths from Tuesday, I think." Charlie confirmed, and Nikki sighed with relief:

"Thank God for that!"

"Why?"

"Cross-contamination." Nikki explained, as though it were perfectly obvious, "now, you were wearing gloves?"

"Of course. I wasn't stitching _that_ up without gloves!" Charlie exclaimed, horrified.

"And, where did you put those gloves when you'd finished with them?"

"In the bi – no!"

"What?" Nikki asked, watching as Charlie clearly began to run things through her mind again:

"I took the gloves off when the DSI came in, but just before he left I put them back on, because it looked like he might be here a while, and I might need to keep working… and then he shook my hand…"

"AND?!" Nikki asked, so abruptly that Charlie almost jumped with surprise.

"And I took them off again, in case there was anything on them which might have been damaging to the body…"

"And?!" Nikki asked, again, less jumpy this time, but with the same desperation etched across her face.

"And I put them in my pocket." Charlie concluded, and Nikki jumped up in exultation, throwing her arms around Charlie's neck, and screaming "Oh, Charlie, I could kiss you!"

Charlie tentatively patted her superior's arm, waiting for an explanation, or, failing that, for Nikki to let go, and kiss someone else instead.

*

"Nikki!" Harry laughed, as she opened her own front door half an hour later, "I hope you don't mind, but we, uh, made use of your spare key."

"You also," she smiled, dropping her bag and taking off her shoes, "seem to have made use of my alcohol…" She pushed her living room door open, and nodded as she spotted Leo, Janet and Harry around the room, as well as an empty bottle of wine, and another, half empty, as well as three half-drunk glasses. "Yep." She confirmed, "I was right."

She rolled her eyes, slightly, as she sat down next to Harry on one of her sofas, and allowed him to pull her to him. "Where were you?" he asked, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She leant forward away from his embrace before she replied, so that they knew she was serious; she wanted to get this bit out of the way early, so that they could get on with the drinking and general "_ohmygosh_-you're-getting-married-tomorrow" merriment.

"I've been at the lab." She told them, "working on the case. And I really need you all to listen to me for a moment." She added, glancing back at Harry, who was walking his fingers up and down her back, presumably in a drunken attempt to either seduce her or make her laugh. Given their present company, she sincerely hoped that it wasn't the former…

"So," she continued, batting Harry's hand away and ensuring that it would stay away by entwining it with her own, "I had a brainwave. Charlie was wearing unused lab-gloves when she shook the DSI hands." She offered, hoping that one of her colleagues would work out what she was getting at. She needn't have bothered hoping, though; they were both otherwise occupied – Leo with pouring wine, and Harry with drinking it. She glanced at Janet in despair, and the older woman merely shrugged; it was like talking to a brick wall!

"Anyway," she continued, in vain, "I swabbed the gloves for skin cells, and sent the swabs for testing, to be compared with those samples we found on the massacre bodies. I know it's a bit of a long-shot, but if there's a chance in hell that those bodies were touched by their killer, and that that might have had something to do with our lovely DSI – who Charlie is clearly infatuated with, by the way – then I think we should know." She nodded assertively as she said this, waiting for one of the others to agree. Janet smiled encouragingly at her, and Leo nodded;

"That was a really good idea, Nikki," he confirmed, "if a bit of a shot in the dark. I guess we'll just have to wait for the results, now." He added wistfully – secretly hoping that they wouldn't come in until _after_ his wedding.

"Monday." Nikki nodded. "I promise I won't bring it up again until after the wedding."

"Thank you…"

*

"Come _on_ Harry!" Nikki laughed, staggering to her feet and yanking him to his, several hours, and many, many bottles, later. "You have to go, and you know it. Leo and Janet may not be doing the whole big-white-wedding thing, but some customs _must_ be preserved, and so that sofa is most definitely Janet's for the night."

"Aww…" Harry grumbled, placing a hand tentatively on each of her shoulders, "but I was hoping that I wouldn't need sofa privileges for the night…"

"Harry…" Nikki said, warningly, "you are far too drunk to be making big decisions like that tonight."

"You're not." He pointed out.

"No, I'm not. Which is why I think we should probably wait until a night when you're likely to remember who you're lying next to in the morning…."

"Boring…" he chided, kissing her briefly before she shoved him unceremoniously out of the door and into the waiting cab.


	12. Romantic

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Little Miss Gemmakins on LiveJournal, who was smart enough to do what I didn't think of, and who got me Janet's surname! THANK YOU!**

* * *

**Romantic**

"Good morning," Nikki smiled, as Janet wandered, bleary-eyed into her kitchen at seven o'clock on Saturday morning, "I was wondering whether I'd have to come and get you up."

"I have four hours before the taxi's coming, Nikki," Janet laughed, pulling herself onto one of the stools at Nikki's table, "I have plenty of time."

"PLENTY OF TIME?" Nikki asked, aghast, "You're as bad as Harry!"

"Please," Janet mumbled, her head in her hands, "do not compare me to Harry… especially not on a day like today…"

"He's not that bad." Nikki grinned, passing a cup of coffee across the table, and reaching to shove a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, "honestly."

"It took him six years to work out he wanted to be with you, Nikki." Janet stated, plainly, "I don't want to be compared to that kind of a man on my wedding day."

For a moment, as Nikki pressed a button on the toaster to turn the temperature down, she wondered whether she should be offended on Harry's behalf… eventually, though, she decided that laughter was probably the only appropriate response.

*

Nikki knocked on her bedroom door at ten o'clock, and heard Janet call out that she could come in. It had seemed only fair to allow Janet to use the bedroom to get ready in, considering it was less claustrophobic, and so Nikki herself had had to use the bathroom… where the mirror really wasn't of suitable length to see if her dress looked suitable.

Even though Leo and Janet had decided just to have a quick ceremony at the registry office before a meal, neither of the women involved had been able to resist the urge to dress up, and so Janet was wearing a knee-length creamy-white dress with a tulle skirt, which looked pretty traditional, but juxtaposed beautifully with her skin and hair, which fell across her shoulders. On her feet were white Mary Jane shoes, and as Nikki wandered in, Janet shrugged on a long-sleeved cream red bolero – in the same shade as the flower in her hair – against the February cold.

Nikki smiled and nodded appreciatively when she saw this; "you look beautiful, Janet." She told her, beaming and pulling her – carefully – into an excited hug. Janet smiled, too, and nodded, glancing down at Nikki, who's outfit was hers in reverse (red dress and shoes; cream bolero and flower). "You too, Nikki." She agreed; "and thank you for doing this for us today. I suppose it must be a bit of a drag, you know, for you and Harry… having to spend the day watching your aged boss and his fiancé tying the knot…"

"Not at all!" Nikki laughed, "I'm really happy for both of you, and Harry and I are both _so_ flattered you asked us. And," she added, an afterthought, "don't let Leo hear you calling him aged!"

*

"You ready, Leo?" Harry asked, at half past ten.

"Yep." Leo nodded, pulling himself off the sofa and putting his empty coffee mug down on the table, "I think so."

"Right then…"

*

Eleven-thirty; a registry office somewhere in London. Sun was shining outside the windows, as Leo paced up and down, waiting, and Harry stood, patiently, waiting. Both of them were wondering what their respective partners would be wondering – Leo in a considerably more platonic manner than Harry – and both of them were getting very annoyed at the other's attitude;

"Leo," Harry called, eventually, relax. Seriously. They'll be here."

"How can you be so calm?!" Leo snapped, in reply, turning to face Harry with a look of sheer anxiety on his face.

"Easy. I have the rings in my pocket, I know that Nikki will be looking beautiful, and I am not getting married today." Harry replied, a cheeky smile on his face. Leo rolled his eyes, and checked his watch again, resuming his pacing.

Luckily, Nikki turned up five minutes before the ceremony was due to begin, a vision in red, with her blonde hair curling perfectly around her, and smiled beatifically – and calmly – at Leo. "Janet's waiting outside. She wants you to go in first, so that she can have her grand entrance. I'm going to go and get her when you're called." She smiled, and allowed Leo time to nod in response before she turned to Harry, who was, for once in his life, wearing a suit. "My goodness," she exclaimed, in mock-horror, "he's dressed up! What is happening to the world?"

"Good question…" Harry answered, wrapping his arms around her, and smiling. He was about to lean down and kiss her when someone important-looking strode purposefully down the corridor towards them, and stopped beside Harry and Nikki, who glanced at him, and then at each other, and then back at him, in confusion; why would an official be here to see them?

The official, however, was determined to ask his question anyway, and proceeded to confuse all present completely for a few minutes, by asking "Professor Dalton and Ms Mander?"

Nikki glanced back at Harry, who began to explain to the official that he and Nikki were witnesses, when Leo laughed loudly; "he thinks that you two are getting married!"

"What?" Nikki asked, glancing at Harry to gauge his expression, which was, typically, neutral.

"He thinks that you two are Janet and I, obviously." Leo explained again, this time more slowly, "And so he thinks that you two look like you're about to get married…"

He left Nikki and Harry to digest that bombshell, and stood up to shake the official's hand; "Professor Leo Dalton," he said, "my fiancé is waiting for me outside. Nikki's just about to go and collect her, aren't you, Nikki?" As he said her name, he stared pointedly at her, pulling her out of her happy little daydream and back to reality; it wasn't her who was getting married today.

*

As Leo and Janet exchanged rings and kissed for the first time as a married couple, Nikki began to cry; they were tears of happiness and tears of hope, for she had never expected to see Leo this happy again, since the deaths… since they… since… She'd never expected to see Leo smiling and, well, _glowing_ in the way that he was today ever again. She'd never thought that he could find love again, and as she realised, properly for the first time, that he had, she began to wonder if she, too, could be this happy.

She and Harry… she'd always known, deep inside her, that they were meant to be – and she'd always prayed that the 'Penny Interlude' would be just that – and interlude… but she'd never expected any of that to be more than blind hope.

As Harry wrapped his arms around her, for the second time that day, pulling him to her and wiping away a tear with his thumb, she wondered absent-mindedly if she was glowing in the way that Leo and Janet were – with happiness, and with hope, and with love.

A minute later, though, she knew that she was; Leo and Janet took each other's hands, and walked out of the office, past her and Harry, leaving just the two of them for a tiny moment before they knew that they, too, had to leave. Harry leant down and kissed her, in that moment, and, completely out of the blue, whispered "we should do this someday" into her ear, before kissing her again, and looking her firmly in the eye as he said "I love you" – those words that, for so, so very long, she had longed to hear him say to her.

"I love you, too…" she whispered, feeling fresh tears – tears of elation, this time, trickling down her cheeks.

*

Hours later, the newlyweds, Nikki and Harry sat in Leo's living room, listening to gentle music playing and drinking champagne. They'd had a lovely meal at a beautiful restaurant, and were enjoying talking about nothing in particular – enjoying the feeling of not having the responsibility of work shrouding them, and enjoying the joy and love and hope which had followed them all around all afternoon.

Eventually, at about eight o'clock, Nikki leant across to Harry and whispered words to the effect that they should be going now, to leave Janet and Leo to enjoy their wedding night. Harry, however, shook his head, and said, aloud, "not until they've had their first dance".

Janet smiled at this; but Leo grimaced. The other three new instantly that he was about to start making excuses, and so Nikki crossed to the CD player in the corner of the room, and picked up the CD box, checking the track listing for something first dance-ish; she smiled conspiratorially at Leo, and said "go on. You have to…" Janet nodded; she hadn't wanted a big wedding, but this seemed proper; this seemed right.

"We'll join you," Harry said, "but you have to have your first dance!"

Eventually, as the track Nikki had chosen began to play, Leo stood up, and took Janet in his arms, and began to sway awkwardly with her; she smiled, evidently thrilled, and allowed him to, leaning up to kiss him gently. About half-way through the song, Harry stood, too, taking Nikki's hand, and pulling her to him. He kissed her on the top of the head, whispering "I meant what I said earlier. I really, really do love you, Nicola Alexander", before they, too, began to dance.

*

_When the calls and conversations  
Accidents and accusations  
Messages and misperceptions  
Paralyze my mind_

Busses, cars, and airplanes leaving  
Burning fumes of gasoline  
And everyone is running  
And I come to find a refuge in the

Easy silence that you make for me  
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me  
And the peaceful quiet you create for me  
And the way you keep the world at bay for me  
The way you keep the world at bay

* * *

**A/N: Couldn't resist showing the difference between the men and the women, getting ready… it made me giggle ;)**

**And excuse my "thing" for Mary Janes. I have a love-affair with them which is quite unnatural.**

**Also; apologies to anyone who hates lyrics in fics… I had to, I swear! ;) The song is "Easy Silence" by the Dixie Chicks. It seemed relevant. :) **

**More soon; promise xx**


	13. Battles

**A/N: Sorry if I bored you with my wedding-y happiness... but I really did enjoy writing it! I promise, by the end of this chapter, that the tension will be right back up there. Or, at least, I hope it will. It all goes downhill from here ;)**

**

* * *

**

Battles

That Sunday morning, for the first time in a long time, Nikki was woken by a kiss; Harry leant across the space between them and pushed her hair from her shoulders, pressing gentle kisses all the way along her neck to her mouth, where he finally kissed her gently on the lips. She smiled as she felt this, and blinked her eyes open, wondering, subconsciously, if she was still asleep. The fact that Harry smiled too, and that she could feel his breath tickling her skin as he whispered "Good morning, beautiful" seemed to shoot that theory down pretty soundly.

"Good morning…" she mumbled back, blinking hard to dislodge any remaining semblance of sleep before she lifted her hand from beneath the covers and touched it to his face, checking, just in case, that he really was there. The spark on the end of her fingers when she touched him confirmed facts; she was most definitely in Harry Cunningham's bed, and, judging by the tired smiles on both of their faces, she might well be here again, pretty soon. At least, she hoped so.

As Nikki lay there, just staring at Harry, and Harry lay there, just staring at Nikki, in absolute, tranquil bliss, memories of the day and night before flitted through both of their minds, and Nikki wondered aloud; "did you mean what you said yesterday? When you said you loved me?"

"Yes." Harry nodded, touching a hand to her cheek, and stroking her face.

"And the other thing?"

"What other thing?" he asked, knotting his fingers in loose, curling tendrils of her hair.

"The thing at the wedding where you said 'we should do this someday'." Nikki answered, trying not to let the hope rise too high in her voice, "did you mean that?"

"Yes." Harry answered, simply, leaning across the centimetres between them to press a kiss to her head. "Yes, I did."

Nikki nodded nonchalantly in response to this; she tried coyly to pretend that her heart wasn't racing, and that she wasn't envisioning their life together before her very eyes. She couldn't decide whether she would keep her own surname or not; and Alexander-Cunningham would sound ridiculous… Doctor Nicola Rose Alexander-Cunningham… Doctor Nicola Cunningham-Alexander…

She lay there for five or so minutes with these thoughts running round and round her head, and with Harry just watching before he eventually asked "what're you thinking, Nikki?" She blushed fuscia as he asked that, and he smiled; "come on…" he whispered, his hands still in her hair, "you can tell me…"

"Nothing…" she giggled, blushing even more, "really…"

"Oh yes it is something…" Harry teased, and she smiled. "You'll tell me eventually. I know you will."

"Maybe." She replied, "maybe not."

"Definitely will…"

"Definitely won't…"

"I'm pretty sure," Harry smiled, "that I'll find a way to extract that information eventually…"

"Mmm…" Nikki giggled, "if last night is anything to go by, I'm pretty sure you will, too…"

Harry grinned again and leant over to kiss Nikki again, before sitting up and saying "right. We said that we were going to do this thing properly. So, I am going to make tea, and you are going to get dressed, and then we are going to go out for the day and pretend to be a normal couple."

"Pretend?" Nikki asked, giggling.

"Yes," Harry explained, "because normal couples haven't been in love for six years before finally waking up next to each other."

"Good point." Nikki smiled, "But I'm going to need to pop home for some fresh clothes."

"And for some stuff for tomorrow."

"What?" Nikki asked, confused.

"Well, if you're going to be staying here tonight, as something tells me you will, you're going to need some fresh work clothes for tomorrow."

"This is very true." Nikki nodded, smiling, "so: tea, clothes, my house, grab a bag, be a couple?"

"Yes. That sounds about right."

"Thank you, by the way." Nikki smiled, sitting up and pulling the duvet around her as Harry climbed out of bed.

"What for?" he asked, confused.

"It's been a long time since anyone told me they loved me. Sincerely, I mean. And it's been a long time since I've honestly been able to say it back."

"'These three words'," Harry quoted, "as the immortal Snow Patrol so eloquently stated, 'are said too much, but not enough'."

"I mean it now, though." Nikki stated, smiling, "I really do love you."

"And I really do love you, too."

*

Climbing out of Harry's car on a Monday morning, without having to hide it, or pretend that nothing was going on between them, was a very odd, but very happy, feeling, Nikki discovered. What was even nicer was being able to take Harry's hand as they crossed the car park, and being able to sign in to the building together, and being able to kiss each other good morning in the locker room, without it being for the first time that day. It felt happy, and it felt good.

Unluckily for Nikki, what goes up must come down – and that was the case for her mood, that day, although she wouldn't find out why for a good few hours… and so we won't dwell on that now. What we will dwell on, instead, is Leo's reaction to seeing his two colleagues looking so happy, not two days after his own wedding:

"What're you two smiling about?" he asked, looking up from his papers as they walked in. Nikki grinned when she noticed him absentmindedly fingering his wedding ring, and she told him honestly "since your wedding, Leo, I have been happier than I have ever been in my life."

"As have I." Leo nodded, "although that is what is supposed to happen."

"Very true." Nikki nodded, sitting down at Harry's desk, and turning on his computer. He rolled his eyes at Leo when he noticed this, and did the only thing that he reasonably could in that situation; he crossed to her, and scooped her up in his arms, placing her back down in her own chair, and stating plainly "this, Nikki, is _your_ desk."

"Wow." Nikki laughed, "so it is. Hello, desk. Nice to see you again; it's been a while. I'm sorry, but I prefer Harry's, to be honest."

"Why?" Harry and Leo asked, in unison.

Nikki shrugged; "it feels more like home".

*

Later that afternoon, having conducted _another_ PM on _another_ natural causes death (whilst Harry was at a _crime scene_ – he was going to pay for that!), a blonde woman in a lab-coat crossed the room, a pile of papers in her hand, and a defiant look on her face. She passed the papers to her boss, and smiled knowingly. He surveyed the papers, and conceded that she was right all along…

"Be careful," he cautioned her; "I don't think that you really understand exactly what it is that you're getting yourself into."

"I'm a big girl, Leo," she replied, "I can fight my own battles."

*

_But… I couldn't, could I? Not really… not if it ended up like this… _

_I thought, all along, that I was invincible, and that they would never dare hurt me… that they'd not come after me, or make me fight this crazy war. But, they did… of course they did. They were always going to…_

* * *

**A/N: recognise that chapter ending? Hmmm.**

**Anyway, sorry about the crazy-mixed-up chapter. It matches my crazy-mixed-up brain, ha ha. A**

**Oh, and watch your inboxes for a couple of days; a fanfiction & blogging friend of mine is 21 the day after I'm 18 next month, and we're having an imaginary fanfiction party… you may just find an invite waiting! :)**


	14. Warning

**Warning**

_I thought, all along, that I was invincible, and that they would never dare hurt me… that they'd not come after me, or make me fight this crazy war. But, they did… of course they did. They were always going to…_

_I… should have been more careful. I should have been less obvious. I should have known that they would always be one step ahead - and I should have known that they were dangerous. Because they _were_ dangerous - _are _dangerous - and I underestimated them, all along. _

_We might have been working on this case as a team, but it was mine at heart, and it was me who was responsible when everything started to spiral even further out of control. It was always me._

*

Down a leafy suburban street in North London, a man sat in a car with blacked out windows. It was the kind of car that you don't want to come across, waiting outside your house, on a dark evening, when you are alone - and he wasn't the kind of man that you wanted to find in the car, if you had to find the car, either. In fact, he was the same man who sat at the desk with the headphones attached to the equipment in the darkened room, noting things down, not so very long ago, and he was the same man who had told the attractive DSI the information which he had so stupidly disclosed that he knew. He was the same man, too, who sat at the same desk with the same headphones attached to the same equipment in the same darkened room earlier that day, listening, again. This time, though, he'd heard something he didn't understand, and he wasn't the kind of man who took kindly to hearing things he didn't understand. Hence the car, and the leafy suburban street, and the fact that he was waiting.

He didn't know exactly who it was that he was waiting for; he hadn't been there during any of the times that Doctor Nicola Alexander had been observed in the flesh; he hadn't been the one hiding inconspicuously outside her house for so long, and he hadn't been the one whose wife had engaged her in conversation seemingly by accident at a bar on Valentine's Night, and he hadn't been the one to gather all of the information about her personal life.

From what he'd heard from the people who had been, she was absolutely stunningly beautiful; a proper English rose, and very delicate with it. Apparently, she looked as though she might blow away, if a strong enough gust of wind caught her; but he knew first hand, from listening and noting and listening and noting, the strength of her convictions. He knew, too, that the combination of stunning beauty and firm convictions was not going to make her an easy person to intimidate, and so he gently ran his fingers up and down the length of the pistol in his lap whilst he waited, wondering how soon he would have to use it.

*

"Goodbye, Harry." Nikki laughed for the fifth time that evening. She had never had cause to experience, before, exactly how persuasive her… what was Harry, anyway? Her boyfriend? She chafed at that word; it sounded so impermanent. Harry was so much more to her than a boyfriend, and she suspected that she was so much more to him, too.

She had never had cause to experience, before, exactly how persuasive her… her… her _Harry_ could be, and she was enjoying it a little too much. Standing in the car park of the lab, in the pouring rain and mid-February darkness, Harry had his arms around her, as she leant up against his car, and he was kissing her more and more persuasively each time. She'd tried to break past him before, but he'd only leant in and kissed her again, knowing how she was completely unable to resist.

This time, though, she succeeded in distracting him long enough from his mission to turn her lips completely numb, and he smiled sadly asking "why?"

"Because, Harry," she laughed, "I haven't spent a night in my own bed since Friday, and I'm sorry, but yours just doesn't match up." She paused a second, then, and said "I was surprised by that; your desk is so much nicer than mine…"

"Hmmm." Harry nodded, "that is an intriguing situation, isn't it? Would you like to come back to mine, to see if we can rectify that situation?"

"Yes," Nikki laughed, "yes, Harry, I really would… but maybe some other time."

"Fiiiiiiine…" Harry sighed, rolling his eyes, and leaning down to kiss her again, "night, Nikki. I love you."

"Good night, for the sixth time, Harry." She smiled, disentangling herself from him and kissing him on the cheek, "I love you too."

*

Eventually, the man in the blacked-out car who so often sat behind a desk with headphones and equipment and a notebook knew that his waiting would pay off. Three hours after he first pulled up outside the pretty little house that Doctor Nicola Alexander called home, a blonde woman with hair lank and wet from the rain wandered down the street, her heels clicking as she walked. She was distracted, fumbling in her bag for keys, and so she didn't notice the man with the gun slip out of the car with the blacked-out windows. When she walked past him, he was leaning nonchalantly up against the car, the gun held tightly in his hand, in his coat pocket; he hadn't bothered with a silencer. He wasn't going to shoot her tonight, he'd decided; he was only going to scare her. As yet, she hadn't told anyone she shouldn't have about the interesting things that she had discovered. As yet, though, she hadn't discovered anything concrete. That he knew of.

There was, of course, that intriguing conversation she'd had earlier, with her boss, where he'd told her to be careful, and she'd claimed to be able to fight her own battles… surely that conversation had meant something?

The man shrugged to himself, and fell into step behind her, as she wandered down her garden path, smiling to herself at memories of the past few days, and how happy she'd been. He was about to shatter that happy little world, and it made him smile.

As soon as she stepped up to the door, before she'd even got the key in the lock, he placed a hand on the wall either side of her, trapping her. "Nicola?" he asked, watching as she turned to face him, as he'd known she would. There wasn't fear on her face, yet; there was confusion, and shock, but not fear. She nodded slightly, swallowing, as she watched him survey her face. Her mind raced, in that moment, and, oddly, the first thing that she thought was exactly how much like a stereotypical mobster he looked, with his black trench coat, and dark glasses, and the pocket which was obviously hiding a gun… she should have been panicking, but she wasn't. She was assessing the situation, and analysing his clothing - and he could tell.

"Nicola," he said, again, "I am very sorry that I have had to come and visit you, It's something that I had hoped I wouldn't have to do, but it seems to me as though you have been getting a little too involved in a certain investigation, and I thought that it would be best to come and warn you, in person, that I think it would be in your own best interests to desist. Do you understand me?"

Nikki swallowed, hard, again, as he pulled his gun from his pocket, and tossed it aimlessly between his hands, as though to say 'you see this? I have this, and I'm not scared to use it. Alright?'

All that Nikki could think in that moment, though, was that this man was probably not the man behind the massacre; that had been committed using submachine guns, and this man looked very comfortable indeed with a pistol. Instead of mentioning this, though, Nikki just nodded, and waited for the man to react; "Good." He nodded, "I do hope that we never have to meet again, don't you, Nicola?"

"Y-yes…" Nikki nodded, trying to sound as though she was perfectly calm; she was calmer than she had expected to be, when cornered by a scary man with a gun who was very probably a member of the mob, and despite her frank analysis of the situation, she could feel herself beginning to shake.

"Yes." The man nodded, "because I don't think that any further meetings between the two of us could possibly end well, for you. I am so glad that we've sorted this out. Goodnight, Nicola."

* * *

**A/N: In answer to the lovely Immortl Spud Thief's question, yes, I am trying to kill you all with the tension. Is it working? *Smiles sweetly***


	15. Fear

**Fear**

Nikki was shaking. She was crying, and she was shaking. It was one o'clock in the morning, and she was in the corner of her bedroom, on the floor, with her legs pulled up to her chest, and her duvet all around her. The enormity of what she was getting herself into was suddenly becoming horrifically clear, and she was shaking from fear. Earlier, she had been shocked, yes, by the man from the mob with the blacked-out windows and the gun, but she hadn't been overly afraid. As the night went on, though, and she realised how horrifically _alone_ she was, shock turned to outright fear, which turned rapidly into terror, and lead her to hide in a corner of her bedroom, wide awake, and petrified.

Since eleven o'clock, she had been persuading herself that it would be a very, very bad idea indeed to phone Harry up and tell him what had happened, but time was slowly eroding her self control, and she was growing ever more fearful… and, eventually, at ten past one, she picked up her phone, and dialled Harry's number from memory, and holding the phone tentatively to her ear, as she waited for him to answer.

Eventually, after twenty-six rings (she knew, because she counted, and suddenly, for the first time in her life, she became very grateful that Harry had never bothered to learn how to work his answering machine), he picked up, his voice full of sleep. "H-hello?" he answered, and Nikki felt her heart sore. Just the sound of his voice made her feel suddenly so much more secure.

"Hi, Harry…" she smiled into the phone.

"Nikki." He replied, simply, "what is it? It's one am."

"Ten past, actually."

"Nikki…" he answered, warningly, and she smiled again; she could _hear_ him waking up, and becoming more and more like Harry by the second. She didn't _want_ to have to tell him what had happened, and, all in all, she didn't really think that that had been her plan when she had phoned him, but it was what she ended up doing. All of a sudden, the words just came spewing out of her, until Harry knew the whole story, and the shock, horror, control and fear she heard in his voice as her murmured her name, to comfort her, were the most reassuring sounds that she had ever heard. Harry would look after her; Harry would always look after her. That was one of the reasons that she was so reluctant to label him 'boyfriend'; what boyfriend would show that level of commitment?

"I'm coming over, Nikki," Harry told her. She could hear him climbing out of bed, and she could see, in her mind's eye, how he would be crossing his room and pulling clothes out of a drawer at random. "I don't want to leave you alone tonight. We can talk about how to solve this in the morning, alright?"

"Alright." She nodded, submissively. She had never thought that she would be the kind of woman to be grateful of protection, but she knew, in that moment, that all she wanted in the world was to feel Harry's arms around her; to smell his Harry-ish smell; and to feel the comfort and security that she always did in his presence.

"I still have my spare key from when you went on holiday that time," he told her, "do you mind if I let myself in?"

"No."

"Alright. Stay exactly where you are, and I'll be with you in five minutes."

Those five minutes were the longest of Nikki's life. Fatigue was causing her to imagine things; every tiny sound around her, every car driving down her road, every creak of her house, which would usually be perfectly natural and normal and not in the least frightening, was causing her to curl up into herself even more, and to shiver and quiver and quake with worry, apprehension or fear. In her mind, she was rewriting the transcript of her conversation with the man with the gun and the blacked-out windows, a hundred times a minute, and it was scaring her; she was beginning to forget what was false and what was real, and she was beginning to wonder if he had pointed the gun at her, or if he had just demonstrated that he had it… Petrified, she snuggled into her duvet, and prayed for Harry.

The sound of her door creaking open jolted her out of her daydream faster than she had imagined to be possible, and she began listening intently for any sign that it might not be Harry. As whoever it was began to climb the stairs, she felt her heart slamming in her chest; and the sound of her bedroom door being gently nudged open sent shivers down her spine. The sound of Harry's voice, however, when he whispered "Nikki?" made her heart leap with relief.

"I'm here." She said, trying not to let him hear the way that her voice was shaking.

He listened, and heard, and glanced around the room to trace the source of her voice. He eventually found her, cowering in the corner, and looking less like Nikki than he had ever known her to. Whoever this man in black was, he had put the fear of God into her, and he hated seeing her look like that. "Nikki…" he whispered, engulfing her in a hug; he sat down beside her, and she wrapped the duvet around him, too, allowing him to pull her to him, and wrap his arms around her, kissing her gently on the forehead as he did so.

"Nikki…" he whispered, "I am so, so sorry… I should have come with you tonight. I shouldn't have let you come home alone, I…"

"No, you shouldn't, Harry. There was nothing you could do. I made this mess myself."

"We're going to get you out of it together, though." He assured her.

"No," she said, "we're not. I don't want to put you in danger, too. I couldn't do that to you - it would break my heart. I love you too much to let that happen, Harry." She replied, tears welling up in her eyes.

"And I don't love you too much to let you get any deeper into this, alone?"

"You don't understand, Harry." She told him, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Tell me, then. Let me understand."

"Not now." She said, shaking her head. "I'm tired, now, Harry."

"Alright." He nodded, "but tell me in the morning."

"I will." She nodded, leaning over to kiss him, "I'm going to back to bed, now. I might actually get to sleep, this time."

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Yes, please." She smiled, pulling the duvet up with her, and walking the two paces back to her bed. She dropped the duvet on, and climbed in, curling up and pulling it around her. A moment later, she felt Harry climb in, too, and felt him drape an arm protectively around her.

"Goodnight, Nikki." He said, kissing the back of her head, "for the seventh time tonight."

* * *

**A/N: I've just noticed that you've _all_ missed something really important to this story, and that you're going to kick yourselves if I tell you. So, I'm not going to. Ner ner ner... *Sticks tongue out* **

**Reviews are love... *hint hint***


	16. Horror

**Horror**

Harry was gone when Nikki woke up, and this scared her. She curled up into a tight ball, pulling her duvet firmly around her, and prayed for him to come back soon – prayed with all she had to any God she could think of. She wasn't usually the kind to be intimidated easily, after everything she'd been through as part of her job (she had trained as a forensic anthropologist rather than a doctor of actual medicine so that she wouldn't have to spend time in hospital. That plan, she now realised, had gone shockingly, horribly wrong…), but this case was scaring her more than any of the others had. She knew that Leo and Harry were concerned, and she knew that the incident the previous night, when relayed to Harry, had petrified him, but she didn't think that either of them really understood the intricacies of it all the way that she did. If they had tracked her down, and they had found her, then she was in serious trouble. Because who had she to turn to, now? The police were clearly in on it – or, some of them were. But the problem with a partially-corrupt police force was that any member of it could be corrupt, and so she didn't feel comfortable speaking to any of them.

She began to wonder, and she hugged her duvet tightly, whether the net seemingly wrapped around her, now, had been being wrapped since before the crime itself took place. She supposed it must have been, and that worried her; whoever it was, whoever was behind this, meant business, and could have her, or Harry, or Leo, or Janet, or sweet, innocent Charlie killed in the blink of an eye, and there was _nothing she could do._ She couldn't just _leave_ the case – because there was still an extra body, and yes, the DNA samples she had collected yesterday matched traces found on all of the bodies, which lead her to believe, perhaps, that they had _all_ been tampered with… so she had a slight lead, but Leo and Harry would never agree to let her pursue it. And if she did continue with the investigation, well… who knew where it could lead? She certainly didn't, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to, given last night.

There was only one thing that she could think to do, in the mean time, and that was continue to investigate the bodies in her spare time. No one had come to collect them; they remained un-ID'd, and so they couldn't be buried, or removed from lab premises. She didn't suppose that they would be on the missing persons register, either, because that would be making it too easy.

That was what she would do, though. She would carry on, and see if anything else happened; see if anyone else came a-knocking, asking questions and planting decoys; see if the man in the black coat with the pistol and the threats and the watching and the waiting came back. That, she realised, on balance, might be the last thing that she ever did, but she needed to do it nonetheless.

*

Twenty minutes later, Harry reappeared; he'd clearly been home to change into some proper clothes, and as he came into Nikki's bedroom, he placed a cup of tea on her bedside table, smiling sympathetically at her. "I'm sorry." He said, again, "you were fast asleep when I left. I didn't think you'd be awake yet."

"What time is it?" she asked, sitting up and taking a sip of tea. It was too hot to drink, so she blew delicately on it to cool it down, admiring the serene calmness of the ripples on its surface.

"Almost half-past six."

"Mmm." Nikki nodded, acknowledging that she'd heard him, without adding anything else.

Harry sat down at her feet, then, and placed a hand gently on her knees, which, again, were bent up to her chest. She'd been doing that all night, he knew; even when she was lying down. He wondered whether it was some kind of automatic defence mechanism kicking in, which made her hide away, into herself, and he smiled, sadly. So long as she let him in; so long as she told him anything that was worrying her, and so long as she let him help, he didn't mind at all.

He had something important to tell her, now, though, and it was something that he had been building himself up to telling her, all the way back from his apartment to her house… he was nervous, and he wondered whether her new, internalised attitude would change her response. He hoped not; he wasn't planning on giving her an option, anyway.

"Nikki?" he asked. She glanced up from her tea, and smiled sadly at her, catching his eye. "I… I was thinking, on the way home. I think you should move in with me for a while, for your own safety. It's… it's clearly not safe for you to be here, and you might be harder to find at mine."

Nikki shook her head; "no, Harry." She said, "I can't do that. I can't put you in danger like that. I told you last night."

"Well," Harry reasoned, "either you move in with me for a bit, or I'm moving in here."

"Harry…" she warned, but he could see that she was losing her fighting spirit; she was crushed, slightly, with fear and apprehension, and the need for comfort, which she knew she would never have if she was cowering in the corner of her own bedroom at night… and she would be, if she didn't have him there. It scared her, already, that she knew this with so much clarity… but it was true. In the end, she finished her tea, placed the empty cup back on the bedside table, and sighed; "Fine." She agreed, "I'll move in with you. But just for a bit, and just for safety. We're still doing this the conventional way."

"Convention," Harry told her, smiling as he leaned in to kiss her, "is over-rated." Nikki giggled:

"I know." She smiled, "but I just don't… want to jinx things. I've wanted this for so long, Harry, that I don't want to mess it up now by jumping the gun."

Harry stared at her, his eyes wide, as she said that, and she suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth, having realised what she'd said. "Oh my God!" she whispered, "um, no pun intended?"

"Yeah yeah…"

*

"So, when're you moving in then?" Harry asked, casually, over lunch. Not that they'd gone anywhere; they were sitting at Harry's desk, with sandwiches and coffee, looking through some papers from a suicide they'd PM'd that morning, and they were chatting, like they used to. Harry was very much relieved to see Nikki looking something like normal, then – he'd told Leo that morning, in a whispered conversation in the locker room, how concerned he was, and that he wondered if she should be in work today, so it was nice to have the old Nikki back.

"This afternoon?" she asked, smiling, "after work?"

"Alright." Harry smiled, just glad that she'd agreed, "I'll help you get some stuff together after work, and then I shall cook for you."

"Please," Nikki implored him, "anything but that. Seriously."

"Do my ears deceive me?" Leo asked, wandering in as though he simply had nothing better to do, "or did Harry just offer to poison you?"

"That's about right, yes." Nikki laughed.

"And to what do you owe _that_ pleasure?"

"She's moving in." Harry stated, without thinking. The look of horror in Leo's eyes, coupled by the way he was apparently choking on his words told Harry that perhaps he should explain; "because of the man with the gun. Obviously."

"Oh, right…" Leo smiled, clearly relieved, "good. Don't want to think you're rushing things, or anything…"

"We're not. Honestly." Harry laughed, turning to Nikki for reassurance.

She, though, was staring, wide-eyed at both of them, a look of sheer horror on her face. Her eyes caught Harry's, and something, Leo noticed seemed to pass between them, in that instant, because he clapped his hands to his mouth, swearing loudly. Leo merely stared, confused. Eventually, once she had regained composure, Nikki reached across Harry's desk and scrawled "The bug! They know our plans, now. We HAVE TO STOP FORGETTING!!" on a scrap of paper. Harry nodded; and Leo marvelled at how he had understood all of that from one glance.

He, too, now, found paper and a pen, and scribbled "I refuse to have another computerised conversation – you can both stay at mine tonight & we'll work out what to do from there…"

"Are you sure?" Nikki asked, aloud, clearly shaken to the core.

"Yes. Absolutely." Leo told her, "I'll…" He paused for a second, trying to work out what he could say without giving everything away. "I'll speak to you about everything later." He paused again, trying to sound more like their boss and less like their friend, for the benefit of the bug, "now, lunch break over. Don't you two have a PM to be doing?"

Harry glanced at Nikki, and Nikki glanced at Harry as Leo said this, and they _both_, this time, knew what he meant: they had to go and do second autopsies on the massacre 'plus one' bodies – if they were going to this much effort to evade whoever was behind this, they needed to make it worth their while.


	17. Help

**Help**

"_And everyone is running and I come to find a refuge in the easy silence that you make for me"… Leo and Janet's first dance became the meaning in my life. Harry was, at that point, the only thing in my life which I was certain about, and we'd only been 'together' a week. It was strange how comfortable and loved he made me feel; but it was nice, too. It was nice to have a rock, a constant, in the twisting, turning world, which I found myself in. I couldn't stop, and I couldn't spare a second to enjoy it, though. Time was ticking; the days and hours and minutes and seconds left of this life were passing, and I knew, from that moment in that post-mortem, that I was very probably racing destiny… _

_For someone to have gone to those lengths… well, I must have been in far deeper than I had ever imagined, and I could almost hear the ticking in my ears as I watched and waited, and wondered… as the days passed, I saw my life blurring, and I felt all control slipping away._

_I didn't like that; I had _always_ been in control. It was one of the things that I prided myself on. I was strong; I was stronger than almost everyone I knew, and yet I was not strong enough for this battle, and I was beginning to realise it…_

_*_

Redoing post mortems on bodies that had been in the fridges for over a week was a task that Nikki would not have wished on anyone, that afternoon; it was dull, it was tedious, and she was almost certain that it was going to get them nowhere, for a change. She had to concede that as she and Harry began to re-examine the seventh out of eight bodies – one of the "new" corpses, which she suspected was planted (and with good reason, since Charlie's DSI had mentioned it). No new evidence had come out of the first six bodies. Sure, there was the DNA match to the DSI, but that would lead them nowhere. All it told them was that the people behind this had probably not been all too careful when they were in the lab (whenever it was that they _were_ in the lab) to plant the bodies – because these people had been shot, by machine guns, at close range, and so there was no other reason for the DNA to be present. Besides, it wasn't like they could take any new evidence they came across to the police. Nikki ran a scenario in which they did through her mind as she began checking the gaps between the corpse's toes (as you do);

"_Hi, we have some evidence in the St Valentine's Day Massacre case. We think your DSI is behind it."_

"_That's nice. Now, let me just go tell him, so he can tell the scary guy who threatened you, who can then proceed to shoot you."_

No; that was never going to work. They were at a dead end. They all wanted to reach the bottom of the case, because they all wanted the safety and security that they usually knew to come back to their lives, but they could see no way to do anything about it.

Until…

Harry was at the head of the body, examining the inside of the mouth, when he breathed in so sharply that Nikki heard, and glanced up. "What is it?" she asked, genuinely interested; anything to keep her from her morbid imaginings.

"Something in the mouth." Harry said, not looking away from the body for a second, "could you pass me some tweezers?"

"Sure." Nikki smiled, obliging. She walked around the slab to join him at the top, deciding that, as this case was, essentially, hers, she wanted to be there to see whatever it was that the mouth might yield.

Harry fumbled around inside with the tweezers, clearly working very hard to extract whatever it was without damaging it; Nikki held her breath. Eventually, Harry pulled a shiny slip of white, about five centimetres by two from the roof of the corpse's mouth, where it had obviously been placed very carefully (which, in itself, was, of course, very odd). What was odder, though, was that, at second glance, it was clearly a laminated slip of paper, with something written on it in very bad, presumably rushed, handwriting.

Harry placed it carefully down on the slab, leaving Nikki with it and the tweezers, to examine it, whilst he rushed out to find Leo, kissing her on the forehead as he wandered past. Nikki smiled at this; the kiss, and the finding; before turning her attention to this most intriguing (and newly planted – obviously so) piece of evidence.

By the time that Harry reappeared, Leo following closely behind, she'd worked out what most of it said. She didn't want to tell them aloud, though, in case the cutting room, too, had been bugged. Instead, she continued staring at it, attempting to decipher the rest, in the hope that one of them would realise, and would fetch her a sheet of paper and pencil of her own. Her head was filled with questions, as she read and deciphered; "why?" being the most prominent. It looked, to her, as though the scrawl said "I am the only one who can help you" followed by "tomorrow, 10am, in front of Nelson's column"; and so "who?" was the next one which sprang instantly to mind.

Something else, though, was clear to her, from the moment that she realised what the note said: someone "on the inside" was on _their_ side – or was purporting to be – and they were willing, presumably, to risk their life, in the way she was risking hers, to help.

In the movies, that kind of thing only happened in _really_ serious, life-or-death scenarios… and in her reality, it didn't seem to be any different.

*

Leo's house, later that night; Nikki decided that, as Leo and Janet had offered them emergency accommodation at such short notice, she would help Janet with the cooking. She wasn't too bad a cook, and was more than willing to just do the menial tasks, like potato peeling, which she knew were essential, and would be helpful without being pushy. Janet, on the other hand, was a supreme cook, if a very busy one, and was immensely glad of the assistance. Whilst they were in the kitchen, though, Nikki had a chance to talk to Janet about the case without the male cynicisms she knew Leo and Harry to harbour getting in the way of Janet's serious psychoanalysis and her serious CSI-speculation.

"What did it say, again?" Janet asked, as she crossed to the sink, rinsing a colander full of broccoli.

"'I am the only one who can help you'," Nikki repeated, "tomorrow, 10am, in front of Nelson's column."

"And, you're wondering whether it's genuine?"

"Yes."

"Well," Janet mused, "the fact that it was scrawled suggests to me that it might well be; whoever left it for you was clearly worried that they'd be caught. The fact that it was so well hidden suggests that, too, actually."

"How?" Nikki asked. She had a great respect for Janet – not just as a friend, but because she had never been able to understand the complexities of the human psyche. Her field dealt purely in facts ("the person is dead. There is a gun shot wound"), with only a little speculation on the side ("therefore, they were almost certainly shot"): whereas Janet spent all day, everyday coming to conclusions based on very flimsy evidence. Usually, she seemed to be right, too, which was even more astounding to Nikki.

"Well, these people clearly know where you live – and they also seem to know a hell of a lot more about you, too, from what Leo's told me – so whoever it is that sent this could easily have put a note in your letterbox or left you a message in your voicemail or something – but they didn't. They _hid_ it, somewhere that no one else was likely to find it, and they hid it somewhere which meant that you would have to truly be working on the case to find it."

"That sounds fair." Nikki nodded. She was still peeling potatoes, but she paused as she said this; it was dawning on her, now, that she might soon have to face her fears in public.

"And the fact that they want to meet you somewhere public reinforces this." Janet continued, "because anyone skulking around behind a mafia don's back is hardly going to skulk in plain sight."

"Hiding in plain sight…" Nikki nodded. She'd heard a quote relating to that, and even though she couldn't remember it, it was reassuring her.

"Exactly. No one hides in plain sight." She paused a second, taking the (now peeled) bowl of potatoes from Nikki and emptying them into a simmering pan, "unless they are really, really trying to hide."

"Mmmm…"

Nikki smiled as she heard this; it was immensely reassuring to her to know that there was potentially someone else on their side. Then again, though, the lengths that whoever had left the note had gone to to conceal it worried her almost as much as the man in the blacked-out car with the gun had; she was getting way too deep into this, and she knew it.

"There's something else, too." Janet said, and Nikki glanced up from her pile of potato peelings, frowning. "Yes." Janet smiled, "and it's good. Honest. You see, the fact that this person left you a note means that you probably are _only_ bugged; they're not watching you, too. I know Leo thought that you and Harry were concerned about that."

"I'd never thought of that." Nikki smiled. "Thank you – for everything."

"It's my pleasure, Nikki." Janet smiled, too, as she crossed to the oven, "anytime."

There was hope, then; even though everything seemed bleak, there was hope.

* * *

**A/N: Have you worked out what it is you're all missing, yet? Hee hee heeee**


	18. Alana

**Alana**

Sleeping at Leo's house was weird. Or, at least, this was the excuse Nikki was giving herself for not being able to. It was three o'clock in the morning, and she was lying next to Harry on the bed in Leo's spare room, staring at the ceiling, and listening to Harry's gentle snoring from beside her.

In reality, she knew that the reason she was wide awake at such a blatantly ridiculous hour had very little at all to do with weirdness, and had, in fact, a considerable amount to with the fact that she was very, very, very scared about her impending meeting with whoever it was who wrote the note.

For the first time in their admittedly short romantic 'relationship', Harry and Nikki had argued, that night, about whether or not Nikki should be allowed to go. She had to admit that Harry's argument was a good one; she was, she knew from past experience, very able when it came to getting herself into dangerous situations; if there was a dangerous situation there to get into, Nikki would manage. She also, knew, however, that she was a strong, independent woman, and that she was absolutely hell-bent on doing whatever it took to solve the case that they were working on, and if that meant that she had to go and meet a stranger in the middle of London, she was going to.

Eventually, of course, they'd come to a compromise: Harry had agreed to the fact that going to visit this person was necessary, and that, as it was Nikki's case, all told, she should be allowed to go. He'd put his foot down, though, and insisted that he come too. She'd given in, at that point, hating that they were arguing. So long as she got to go, she didn't see the harm in Harry coming; as Janet had rightly pointed out, there was very little chance that this person was actually going to turn on them, unless they did something excruciatingly stupid, like give them away.

Now, though, Nikki was panicking. She didn't like the idea of meeting this stranger in the middle of Trafalgar Square any more than Harry did, and she knew that she had to hide that, at all costs. If Harry knew how apprehensive she was… well, they'd probably never get to the bottom of the case. After all, this person claimed to be the only person who could help them.

So long as they weren't dressed from head to toe in black, and so long as they didn't carry a pistol in the pocket of their trench coat, or wear dark glasses, she reasoned that it would probably be alright.

"What's the worst that could happen…?" she whispered, pulling Harry's hand off her pillow and holding it close to her, for comfort. As soon as she said that, though, she regretted it; the worst that could happen was probably death. And, all in all, death was not really too appealing an option.

*

As they climbed the stairs out of Embankment Station the next morning, and headed up towards Charring Cross, Harry took Nikki's hand. He could tell that she was nervous from the way that she had over-dressed dramatically; she had a habit of dressing up in situations which made her nervous, and today she'd twisted her hair in an exquisite looking knot of some kind, which Harry's brain struggled to find a word for, and she was wearing heels which were frankly impractical on the tube.

He smiled up at the sky as they emerged from the tiny side road by Charring Cross Station, and out on to the wide, bustling Strand, pulling her close to him, and kissing her forehead as they walked. "Are you absolutely sure about this?" he asked, glancing down at his watch, and seeing that it was ten minutes to ten o'clock, "because you don't look it."

"I'm sure." Nikki confirmed, playing absentmindedly with a stray stand of hair – another telltale sign of nervousness.

"Alright. Cross your fingers, then!" Harry joked, and Nikki rolled her eyes.

"Yes," she said, "because that will _really _help us, if it turns out that we don't have a mobster-turned-good-guy, but in fact just have a _regular_ mobster…"

"Wow. Your optimism is quite infectious this morning…"

"It is." She smiled, "I'm glad you noticed…"

They walked on in silence, apprehension gripping them both as they approached Nelson's column. No one was standing obviously in front of it, and so they sat down nearby and waited; they weren't sure how they were supposed to identify whoever it was that they were meeting, and just assumed that, perhaps, whoever it was would know who they were.

The bench where they were gave them a beautiful view of the square in the sparkling in the sunshine, and Harry thought how, in happier times, it might have been nice for them to just come and sit and enjoy people-watching and laughing and joking and being together. This case had artificially forced their relationship forward; they'd skipped from dating to sleeping together to nearly moving in together (and then moving in with Leo, of all people, albeit temporarily) within just over a week, and he couldn't be certain but he thought perhaps that he might have almost-proposed to her at some point that week, too. Whether Nikki had read it that way or not, he couldn't know, but he thought perhaps he did.

He was entirely lost in thought when he felt Nikki squeeze his hand; "I think whoever-it-is arrived…" she whispered, nodding in the direction of a tall, red-headed woman, dressed in a black skirt-suit, and wearing black, shiny heels. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and she was wearing dark glasses and an extremely awkward expression on her face. She looked, Harry thought, like a young detective, lost in a whirlwind she couldn't quite control; she had the same expression of wonder and fear on her face as Harry recalled seeing on Nikki the first time she arrived at the labs.

"I think so…" Harry nodded, "should we go over?"

"Yes." Nikki agreed, "but don't address her. Let her come to us."

They stood up, and Harry wrapped an arm around Nikki's shoulder and she wrapped hers around his waist, for protection in numbers and through habit, more than anything else, as they approached. They stood, nonchalantly, a metre or so away from the woman, who saw them approach and watched them, closely. Equally nonchalantly, she pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket and glanced from it, to them and back again, nodding when she was certain. These two people were whom she was here to meet; they were alone, and they looked safe enough. She felt for the gun holster on her shoulder, instinctively, just in case, and then, breathing deeply, approached them.

"Doctor Alexander?" she asked, quietly, in a broad Scottish accent. Nikki turned, pulling herself from Harry's embrace, but letting him catch her fingers as she did so, nodding to the woman by way of confirmation. "And, you must be Doctor Cunningham?"

"Yes." Harry nodded; she was not at all what he had expected. Nikki's description of the man who had accosted her outside her house had made him feel distinctly threatened, and so he was intrigued to know what this young woman's role in everything was… because, well, he couldn't quite put his finger on it, but she had an air of innocence about her which made him question whether or not everything was really as scary as they had built it up to be.

"I'm… I'm…" the woman spluttered, trying to find the words. She, too, was clearly petrified. She, too, Nikki thought, knew how out of their depth they were, and she felt their pain in a way that only someone in an equal situation could. "Can we go somewhere else?" the woman asked, "a café or something? Somewhere to talk?"

"No." Harry said, firmly. Nikki glanced questioningly at him, and he smiled, reassuringly, whispering "people might be listening in cafes, but here, there is so much conversation that our words will be drowned out."

"Fine…" the woman sighed, her accent becoming even more pronounced, "can we at least sit down?"

Before either of the pathologists had a chance to answer, she crossed to the bench where they'd been sitting, and sat sullenly down, daring them to do otherwise. In the end, they joined her, Harry sitting at the opposite end, with Nikki, nervous but intrigued, in the middle.

"Right…" the woman began, "my name is D… Alana."

"D Alana?" Harry asked, sarcasm colouring his tone. Nikki elbowed him and he smiled back at her, his eyebrows raised. The woman replied reasonably, though;

"The "D" was the start of my title. But, that might not be too safe. If this all goes horribly wrong, I don't want to give them too much to track me by."

"Wish we had that option…" Nikki sighed, and Alana smiled;

"I know. It must be terrible. But, that's why I came here to see you today. I can help you. I can't do much, but I can help, and I will, in any way I can… without," she paused, clearly thinking about how to word her answer, "getting myself caught."

"By which you mean 'killed'…" Nikki laughed, surprised at how easily this world was becoming normal to her.

"Yes." Alana smiled, "I'll try not to do that."

* * *

**A/N: Ooooh. D'you trust her? Hmmm…**


	19. Unsafe

**Unsafe**

"I know. It must be terrible. But, that's why I came here to see you today. I can help you. I can't do much, but I can help, and I will, in any way I can… without," she paused, clearly thinking about how to word her answer, "getting myself caught."

"By which you mean 'killed'…" Nikki laughed, surprised at how easily this world was becoming normal to her.

"Yes." Alana smiled, "I'll try not to do that."

Harry watched as Alana and Nikki began to talk and he began to grow uneasy; they weren't discussing anything important, and every minute they were there, there was the potential for being spotted by whoever was behind all of this – the puppet-master, pulling the strings, and directing human lives. He didn't like the fact that he and Nikki had lost control of their lives, and he didn't like the fact that Nikki was speaking to this woman as though they were old friends, when they had no reason to know if they could trust her. In the end, his impatience got the better of him, and he interrupted: "So," he began, apprehensively; something in the back of his mind was telling him to be careful, in case this woman wasn't to be trusted, or in case she was stupid enough to make the kind of slip up that Charlie's DSI had, "you said you could help?"

"Yes." Alana nodded, "I think I can. I shouldn't be here, and I shouldn't be telling you this, but I am, because I'm new to this game, and I don't like it. I can't get out of it, but I do know who I can and can't trust, in the police force, which is a starting point."

"So, I can tell them everything I've found so far?" Nikki asked, her heart leaping as though a great weight had lifted from it, "everything I've discovered?"

"No." Alana explained, "this is where the problem lies. You see," she continued, "if I give the… people I can trust notes from an incomplete case, they'll start asking questions, and people will work out that I've given the game away, and then we'll all be killed."

"How can you help, then?" Harry asked, incredulous.

"We need each other's help." Alana told him, "I can provide you with information, and I can try to get the… gang off your scent. I can also provide you with means to protect yourself, and clear up any messes towards the end. But, I need you to do the main body of work; I need you to come up with the proof, pinning the murders –"

"Massacre! Not _murders_, 'massacre'!" Nikki exclaimed in a whisper, so as not to draw attention to herself. Alana nodded wryly;

"Massacre, yes… anyway, I need you to find prove pinning the… the gang members to the murder. Solid proof. Stand-up-in-court-and-get-them-locked-away proof. Do you think that you can do that?"

"How long will we have?" Nikki asked, "before your cover is blown?"

"A week? Maybe a little longer?" Alana guessed, running a hand through her hair, a mannerism not unlike one of Harry's. Nikki noticed this and smiled slightly, taking his hand in hers as she listened. "I can probably hold them off that long, before they start asking questions…?" the young woman speculated, "but I really don't know. I'm very knew to this game."

"How did you get into 'this game'?" Harry asked, partly out of curiosity for the investigation's sake, but partly out of genuine interest.

"I qualified for CID last year." Alana explained, "and was put under the control of… a less then by-the-book detective."

"DSI Jenkins?" Harry asked, and Alana nodded.

"Yes. It was all him. I… didn't know any different, at first, but then I began watching friends of mine from uniform qualify under other DSIs, and… well, I heard their stories and began to wonder. And then this case came around. I don't suppose either of you have spared a thought for the first DI on the case?"

"DI Malone…" Nikki breathed, "the idiot we had to explain the concept of 'copycat crimes' to…"

"Yes. Well, he was, um, replaced pretty quickly…"

Hearing the hesitancy in her voice as she said this created a crazy trail of thought in Nikki's mind, and she glanced at Harry, catching his eye. He saw something in that moment, too, and nodded; the extra body… the extra _bodies_… They had to come from somewhere, so why not someone else in the Met who simply knew too much? It was as good a reason as any. And, if he was a member of the police force, surely his DNA would be on file…

"Mmm…" Nikki nodded, in response, "there was another thing, though. Something I never really understood."

"What?" Alana asked, smiling. It was nice to know that she was being listened to and valued by two such genuine people as these; it reassured her, and made her believe that she _was_ doing the right thing.

"How did that note get in the corpse's mouth?"

"When your boss is as high up in gangland and the police as mine is, literally anything is possible."

"Except slamming a revolving door." Harry added, helpfully. Nikki rolled her eyes and elbowed him, nodding for Alana to continue.

"They doctored the CCTV for every single night since the crime. You should really stop leaving things around in your lab, you know. We've been in and out a hundred times."

"How did you get the paper in without anyone noticing?" Nikki asked, trying not to sound too alarmed.

"I went the night before last, alone. I knew how to get in; I'd learned." Alana explained, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Wow…" Nikki mumbled, "this sure makes me feel safe."

"And the man with the gun didn't?" Harry asked. Nikki scowled at him, sticking her tongue out.

"Yes, thanks Harry," she jibed, "because I needed reminding of that…"

"Oh, no," Alana said, "I think you did. You don't realise how serious that man is. He _will_ kill you if he finds out what you're doing." A thought seemed to come to her at random then, and she froze, thinking; "where are you going to live now, by the way? You can't move in together… We know. And it's too dangerous.

"I have _no_ idea…" Nikki answered, beginning to stand up, "but thank you for all your help. We should probably be heading back now."

"Yes," Alana agreed, "me too."

"Is there… any way that we can contact you, if we need to?" Harry asked, getting to his feet, too.

"I… I have two mobile phones. One I use at work, and one for friends. Work don't know about that one, so…" She handed Harry a slip of paper with a number on, and smiled; "I'll be able to get a message to you if I need to. Thank you for meeting me; I was worried you'd not show."

"We were, too, for a while." Nikki confided, "But I agree; we need each other's help…"

*

_More than you will ever know…_

_

* * *

_

**A/N: I have no idea whether the Met keep their officers' DNA on file… but for the sakes of this story, they do :)**

**Oh, and can anyone remember what day we're up to, now? These plots are playing with my brain, and the plotbunnies are chewing out my memory…**

**Thank you ALL for your beautiful and wonderful and kind reviews so far, by the way! I always forget to say that… Woops! XX**


	20. Limbo

**This chapter is for the lovely Charlotte88; because this chapter is the closest I'm likely to get to **_**telling**_** you what it is you're all missing… ;)**

**Oh, and I'm breaking my own rules by posting this chapter **_**before**_** I've written the next one… Because my brain hurts, and I can't string sentences together right now, but I want you to read a potentially more interesting chapter than the last one… Hmmm.**

* * *

**Limbo**

"Charlie?" Nikki called, as she and Harry walked back in to the lab at around midday, having spent an hour in a café, after meeting Alana, running through what they were going to do for the rest of the day. They'd already checked Leo's office, and he was out at a scene, and they didn't want to risk leaving their letter to their boss just lying around. "Charlie?"

"Go and the locker room?" Harry asked, heading off to the cutting room, to make sure that the younger woman wasn't there. Nikki nodded, unnerved; everything she'd heard that morning was causing the blood to pulse through her veins so much more quickly than before, and her experience of the man in black with the gun on the other night wasn't making her feel too safe, either.

She entered the locker room tentatively, and was relieved to see Charlie, sitting on one of the benches, and tying her shoes up. Smiling, she sat down beside the technician, and passed her a letter, carefully folded into an unmarked envelope. Then, she passed a note, saying "Give this to Leo, and no one else. Harry & I have made a break through. We have to go. See you soon."

Charlie nodded, concern and fear, shock and worry in her eyes, as Nikki turned, smiling reassuringly, and left the room, to find Harry.

*

Come ON! You're learning fast, Nikki, but not fast enough!!

_I hate this feeling; this trapped feeling, where I _know_ I could be doing all this so much better now, but where I physically can't, because it's all in the past._

_I hate the way it all keeps rerunning, round and round my head, and the way I see it every time I close my eyes. _

_I hate that I _have_ to watch it, and that I have to replay it, and that I have to dissect my own moves, and the way everything went, to see if I can tie up the loopholes, when they've already, realistically, been tied. _

_I HATE this, this limbo, this in-between… I HATE it._

*

Harry's car, that afternoon; music played in the background, gentle, soothing music, trying to calm them both. They drove in amicable silence, the short journey that they knew they _had_ to drive, and every so often one of them would open their mouth to speak, and words would fail them, because they know, instinctively, that even though it looks like they're winning, this time, they're not. They're fighting a losing battle, just in case they can possibly pull back through…

"I heard an analogy once." Nikki said, turning her head towards Harry, in the driving seat.

"Wow." He quipped, "long word. I don't like long words. What's an analogy when it's at home?"

"A comparison."

"And?"

"And I heard one once. It was in a comedy routine: two comedians were playing Nazis during the invasion of Russia, and they were trying to work out if they were the bad guys."

"Oh?" Harry asked, wondering why on Earth Nikki was telling him this, when they had so much more to talk about that was so much more important. He guessed that it might, maybe, have something to do with the fact that neither of them could bring themselves to talk about the important stuff.

"Mmm." Nikki continued, "and one of them said that they were winning, now, and it was the beginning of the war. Baddies, he said, always win at the beginning of the war, and then the goodies come back from the very brink of defeat, and they fight like they've never fought before, and they eventually win." She smiled, slightly, as she said this, and she reached out, stroking a finger down the side of his face; "we _can_ win this, you know, Harry." She told him.

Harry couldn't tell whether she was trying to reassure him, or herself, and so he smiled, and nodded, and agreed with her, even though they both knew that she was wrong; they might be the 'goodies' in this war, but they were fighting an unknown, and frankly bloody terrifying enemy, the likes of which they'd never come across before, and… and they could only keep battling on, just in case. Just in case…

'Change the subject', Harry told himself; 'don't let her gain too much false hope.'

He paused, for another moment, staring at the solid queue of traffic in front of them (it was MIDDAY. _Why_ was there a traffic jam? Seriously?), so as to make it look like he was considering her words, before he continued. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her doing exactly the same thing; staring, and pretending, and hoping. He hated to see her like this. Still…

"Where are we going to live tonight?" Harry asked, trying to make his comment seem offhand and casual.

"I don't know. We can't stay at Leo's again. It'll put him in danger." Nikki murmured, turning to face him again.

"And it's too weird."

"You thought so, too?" Nikki giggled, "I thought it was just me."

"No," Harry said, turning his head to her, "it _was_ weird. So. Where?"

"I don't know. We can't go to yours or mine, just in case…"

"Hotel?"

"Oh yes. That would be _so_ romantic. In a scared-shitless kind of way." Nikki laughed, and Harry nodded.

"That's what I was thinking. Checking in and asking for a room for the night… what would the receptionist think?"

"That we're a loved-up couple, looking for somewhere to, ahem…"

"Exactly. And I'm not sure I could cope with that tonight."

"What, pretending to be loved up?" Nikki joked, and Harry rolled his eyes, leaning across to kiss her;

"You know what I mean." He smiled, tapping the end of her nose gently with one finger, "if we weren't so busy fighting the forces of evil in Islington, I would definitely be up for a night in a hotel with you."

"Oh, really?" Nikki laughed, coyly, before pausing; "it could be dangerous, too. You know, because we'd have to give our names at check-in."

"Would we have to give _our_ names?"

"They'd be on the credit cards, Harry."

"Oh. Right." He laughed at his own stupidity, glad that the tension of the situation wasn't causing them to become too overly stressed; it was nice, he thought, to still be able to laugh and joke and smile with Nikki. In between hunting unknown mass-murderers, of course. "So, where else is there?"

"I really don't know." Nikki sighed, leaning back into the passenger seat, and turning to stare at the ceiling. She sounded hurt; she sounded, scared, alone, and dejected, and if the traffic hadn't suddenly started to move again, Harry would have reached across the gear-stick and everything else, and pulled her into a hug, telling her that it would all be alright, and that he loved her, even though they _both_ knew that it wouldn't be alright; at least _one_ of the things he'd be telling her would be true.

"Well, who could we stay with?" Harry asked, trying to make the conversation continue; trying to distract Nikki from her dejected state.

"Well, I think we can rule my Dad out." Nikki laughed, "South Africa's quite a long way to be going for a night."

"True." Harry laughed, when a thought struck him; "Mum!" He exclaimed, "we could stay with my mum."

"Aren't things a bit…" Nikki paused, trailing off as she tried to find the words.

"Awkward between us?" Harry laughed, "probably. But this is life-or-death. I'm willing to bite the bullet and give it a go. We'll stop by our own houses on the way home to pick up enough stuff for a couple of nights." He paused, expecting Nikki to reply; instead she just stared at him, an expression somewhere between amusement and horror on her face. "What?" Harry asked, utterly confused.

"_Bite the bullet?!_" Nikki asked. "_Bite the bullet?_ Really, Harry?"

"I need to stop doing that." He laughed, as they turned the corner toward their destination; the original scene of the crime.

As Harry climbed out of the car, parked in a side road not too far from the garage where the victims were found, he turned to Nikki and said, "I really hope you're wearing flat shoes. Because, I get the feeling that we may have some serious running to do…"

"Why?" Nikki asked, confused.

"They'll figure out what we're doing. I know they will. So… we have to be ready, when the time comes."

"We will be." Nikki assured him, taking his hand, for comfort, "now, come on; we need to speak to whoever owns this garage."

*

"Professor Dalton!" Charlie shouted, as Leo walked back in to the lab after his morning at a scene. Leo glanced up, and saw Charlie careering towards him at high speed, down the corridor. She had an envelope clutched in her hands, and she thrust it at him as he walked in. "From Nikki and Harry." Charlie spluttered, out of breath, "they said it was very important, and that they'd see you later."

"Did they say what it was about?"

"No. But it must be about _the case_…" Charlie confirmed, conspiratorially, "because they didn't actually _say_ anything, if you see what I mean…"

"I do, Charlie." Leo nodded, "thank you."

As he walked back to his office, Leo pulled the letter from the envelope, and began to read;

**Leo,**

**Meeting this morning v useful – definitely trust woman we met. Definitely on our side. Says needs our help to complete case, so when has cast-iron evidence can turn it over to un-corrupt police.**

**Dropped hint about bodies; can you run DNA tests on the 2 anomalies through the police staff data records, NOT the criminal records? **

**Have gone to original scene of crime to do one last check. Will call later.**

**xxx Nikki**

*

The man at the desk with the headphones attached to the equipment in the darkened room – the man with the gun and the black clothes and the blacked-out windows – was listening again, and this time, he heard something that he didn't understand.

"It's from Nikki and Harry." The young woman had said, "they said it was very important and that they'd see you later."

What did that mean? What could that _possibly_ mean? Had the blonde not understood his threat? Had he… had he underestimated her? Clearly, he had. Clearly, she was one of these do-gooder types, hell bent on finding the truth no matter what the personal cost. Well, there was only one price for this, and it was her death.

If only he knew what it was they were doing; where it was they were going…

As he sat, and thought it through, piecing their jigsaw together, trying to put himself in their place, something struck him; they hadn't yet been back to sweep the crime scene.

* * *

**A/N: By the way, if you're feeling very lovely, you could always go to tinyurl(dot)com(slash)abetterplacestory and let me know what you think of that? It's original fiction, and it's very much in need of concrit!**

**Thank you all xoxo**


	21. Run

**A/N: I have no idea how the bureaucracy of forensics works, but I'm guessing that Leo wouldn't get what he needs, in reality, as quick as he does in this chapter. Ha ha, woops?**

* * *

**Run**

Leo did as he was told; he ignored the bodies from the scene that morning, leaving them to Charlie, and went straight to the fridges to extract the anomalies. He knew that, for Harry and Nikki to have asked him to do something like this, it must be pretty serious, and so he collected swab DNA samples and had them tested straight away. Within half an hour, he had confirmation of what Harry and Nikki had only had time to speculate on; the two bodies were, indeed, members of the police force; one DI Malone, and a young officer named James Daniels. Leo stared at this information incredulously, not knowing quite what to think; whoever was behind this, it seemed, was utterly ruthless. They must have had these people killed because they were likely to be genuine, bona-fide officers, genuinely searching for answers the way that the police should. In place of the DI, this case, had been replaced by Charlie's charming, corrupt DSI, and… and that didn't look too good, to Leo.

Nikki, he thought, had no idea how deep she was getting them all into this. _No_ idea at all…

And all he could do now was wait…

*

_Too slow… always too slow. We got the information, but we didn't get it fast enough. We were _never_ going to get it fast enough…_

_They were chasing – always chasing – and they were catching us up faster than we could ever know…_

*

"Nikki", Harry called, from one side of the garage. It was cold, and dark, and dreary, and it was apparently owned by no one, and so they'd had to carefully break-and-enter; Harry had learned a lot about Nikki that afternoon, in that she was apparently capable of picking simple Yale locks with hairpins.

"What?" she asked, somewhat irritably, as she scoured the back wall of the garage for any sign that it had once harboured blood-splatter.

"I think I've found something." Harry told her, "I'm not sure, but I think I might have…"

Nikki stood up, sighing, and crossed the twelve-or-so paces between them, wondering what it could possibly be.

"Look." Harry directed her to a thin sheet of plastic film, which was stuck to one pane of the tiny window - the only source of light in the building.

"What _is _that?" Nikki asked, standing on tiptoe to be able to see properly.

"Tweezers?" Harry asked. She pulled them from her pocket and passed them to him; he took them, smiling, and leant across, carefully, to peel the film from the glass of the window itself. "Have you got a sheet of paper in with all that?" Harry asked, indicating the bulging rucksack Nikki had insisted on bringing with them.

"Probably." She replied, heaving it up, and delving in, "why?"

"I think that there's something printed on this." Harry explained, "it looks like the sticky stuff they put over old ID badges, to hold the photos and information in."

"Why would it have anything printed on it?" Nikki asked, handing him a sheet of paper and an evidence bag.

"It might have picked up the print from the ID card, I suppose?" he asked, placing it up against the paper and squinting. "I can't make out what it says, though…" He passed it to Nikki, and watched, standing close behind her with his head resting on her shoulder, as she tried to work out what it said, too.

"I think… no. It can't be… I…" she stuttered, scarcely believing what she was reading. "Pass me that evidence bag." She told Harry, and slotted the film into it when he did. "We need to keep this safe, and look at it more closely. If it says what I think it says…"

"I got a shot of it on the window, before I removed it." Harry told her, helpfully.

"Good." She nodded, turning to kiss him gently on the lips, "because if it's what I think it is, we might just have found the evidence that Alana was looking for."

*

_Of course, in this game, joy is always short-lived; it would have been too simple, too easy for us to have found a ready solution now, when the ending of this battle was already mapped out, so, so very long ago…_

_They knew the game they were playing better than we did. They knew what was at stake. They also knew how to bring us down, and they were only just getting started…_

*

"Did you hear that?" Harry asked, pushing Nikki back slightly, out of his arms, and out of his embrace. She could almost _see_ him listening; his eyes scrunched up, and crinkled around the edges, and his pupils began almost following the sound he could hear. It was outside; she saw that much in them. But… what was it? "Someone's out there." He confirmed, "I… you know what I said, earlier? About running? I think…"

He glanced around, desperately; there were two doors in the garage, and the first was infinitely preferable to the second, which opened into someone's garden, and was, as yet, still locked. Outside the first, though, was goodness knows who… and they were probably armed. Heavily armed.

"Nikki," Harry whispered, looking her firm in the eyes, "I think they're out there. Can you… unlock that door? I think… we may need to run."

Before he'd even finished speaking, Nikki had darted across the garage to the old, rotten wood door, and was fiddling around with the hairpin. Harry, unsure of exactly what to do, placed the evidence and his camera into Nikki's massive bag, and shouldered it, groaning slightly under its weight. How tiny, waif Nikki had managed to life it was anyone's guess; she looked more delicate and breakable than ever now – wearing flat shoes brought her down to shoulder height on him – and with, well, whoever it was outside… he was honestly terrified.

"Ready." She whispered. Harry, however, was more-or-less frozen to the spot. "Harry!" she whispered, again, "I'm ready…"

Harry snapped awake as they heard someone begin to lift the garage door, and stared, petrified, from it to Nikki and back again…

And then everything was moving at hyper-speed; they were opening the tiny wooden door, and running out, and closing it carefully behind them, and looking around, and realising that they were in someone's garden… And then Harry was helping Nikki climb over the garden fence, and into the next garden, and they were hopping from garden to garden, with the massive rucksack on Harry's back, and Nikki's hair, no longer held back by pins, was flying everywhere, and they just had to keep running…

The only thing that they knew for certain in that horrible, terrifying moment was that they _just had to keep running_…

* * *

**A/N: Thank you all for your _excellent_ theories as to how this ends, and what you're missing. I think you might as well give up guessing now, because Chocolate Scones and Elynara are very nearly right. If they teamed up, they might just get it…**

**:) The rest of you are _miles_ off, though, hee hee**

**Because, I hate to break it to you, but Nikki is not in a coma :)**


	22. Lines

**A/N: In case people don't know, PNG means Persona Non Grata (as in, you're not allowed in). **

* * *

**Lines**

The only thing that they knew for certain in that horrible, terrifying moment was that they _just had to keep running_…

Eventually, of course, they took the time to look back, and they realised that no one was following them. They should have known, of course, because why would these people go to all of the effort of chasing them, when they knew exactly where they could find them, anyway? Why would they do that?

They climbed over the final fence, and emerged onto a leafy, suburban road, glancing around them for any clue as to their whereabouts. They couldn't be too far from a tube station, or a phone box, which was exactly what they needed right now… because they needed to contact Leo, and make sure that any and all members of the police force were PNG'd from the building. They also needed to get him to change the security codes and passwords on all buildings, because, well, these people were getting in and out at night alright, and they couldn't let that happen anymore. Not when they had so obviously crossed the line…

*

_But was there really a line there to cross? I can't help but wonder that, now, as I look back, because it looks so much like there never was… like the line was in our minds… because they were _always _going to come after us, and we should have known._

_We should have been more careful._

_We should have covered our tracks… _

*

Harry's mother, understandably, was shocked to learn that she was to have two house-guests for the foreseeable future. The look on her face when Nikki and Harry arrived at her house, with no luggage, and no obvious means of transporting, requesting money to pay for their taxi over was something that Harry was sure he would remember for the rest of his life; they must have looked a complete state, too, because she offered them tea and biscuits without even asking them to take their shoes off, and without asking _why_ they had turned up and announced that they were staying. She knew, from stories Harry had told her (mostly about Nikki) that their job could be difficult, but she had never expected to be introduced to Harry's new girlfriend like _this_…

Not that she hadn't met Nikki before, of course, she hastened to remind herself. She's known Nikki for a long time, and she'd always wondered why Harry hadn't done the obvious thing – the thing that he was so clearly dying to – and asked her out, on a date. Although she was glad, now, to see that they were an item, she was more glad to see that they were clearly still _alive_, and not too shaken by the ordeal which they vaguely described to her in such a way that she was lead to believe that even _knowledge_ of the case was enough to get your name on the hit list.

"So," Anne Cunningham asked, eventually, "how long do you think that the two of you are going to need to stay?"

"Until they work out where we are." Harry replied, as though being chased by the mob was old hat to him, "which, we hope, won't be until after we solve the case. We're almost sure that we've got it sorted, now."

"We just need to get something to Leo for testing, and that kind of thing…" Nikki explained, "and then wait."

"You make it sound so simple, dear…" Anne smiled, "I suppose you'll want to phone your boss tonight, then?"

"We already did, from a payphone." Harry told her, "that way, they can't trace us. We'll have to go into the lab tomorrow, though, which is where it gets dangerous…"

Anne raised an eyebrow, confused, and Nikki smiled. It was nice to be around someone innocent, again; someone who wasn't constantly thinking up extra conspiracy theories, and who didn't see gunmen in every shadow. She understood, though, that it must be terrifying and horribly confusing for them both to be here.

"They could follow us back here." Nikki explained. "They probably won't, because they don't yet know for certain if we have anything on them… but they might…"

"So," Harry said, turning to Nikki, and away from his mother, "we'll have to take some spare clothes and stuff to work, just in case we can't come back here tonight."

Nikki nodded; it was a very good job indeed that she'd brought her rucksack, and it was also a very good job that she'd made sure she had spare clothes for both of them in it. She had prepared for this moment a long time ago, she knew, but something deep inside her was making her think that maybe she hadn't prepared long enough in advance… something was making her think that, maybe, just maybe, whoever was behind this had been pulling them in, and preparing, and making everything just so for far longer than any of them could possibly have imagined…

"I…" Anne stuttered, "I'm very happy to have you here for as long as you need to stay, dears. I'll… let you go and get yourselves settled, upstairs, alright, Harry? You look like you could both do with a shower…"

Harry smiled; for the first time in a long time, his mother was treating one of his relationships as serious, and adult, and wasn't shrinking away from the idea of one of his girlfriends sharing a bed with him at her house. She couldn't have known, then, how reassured it made him feel about Nikki; it confirmed, to him, that he was doing exactly the right thing, in being with her in this way… it was almost as if she had given them her blessing…

*

"More potatoes, Nikki, dear?" Anne asked, smiling. Considering she'd had approximately three hours notice of dinner guests, she'd pulled together a pretty impressive dinner, of the kind that mothers worldwide were known for cooking when their favourite (only?) sons brought a new, serious, wonderful and perfect girlfriend round for dinner, and inspection.

"No, thank you, Mrs Cunningham." Nikki smiled, feeling slightly intimidated; she wondered absently whether it was so wrong that the prospect of thinking of Anne Cunningham as her _boyfriend_'s mother was scarier than the prospect of being wanted by the mob.

"Call me Anne, honestly…" she laughed, rolling her eyes slightly at Harry, who smiled, and squeezed Nikki's hand beneath the table. "You always have until now…"

"I know," Nikki smiled, before she could stop herself, "but you've always just been my best friend's Mum, before… now, you're my boyfriend's Mum…"

"Nikki," Anne smiled, "that doesn't change anything. You're still _you_, and I'm still me… and besides, if Harry didn't introduce you to me as his girlfriend one day, I think I'd have written to the fates and complained!"

"WHAT?!" Harry and Nikki both exclaimed together, looking absolutely mortified.

"Oh, come on…" Anne smiled, "it was obvious that you two were going to end up together. Everyone's always known it."

"We…" Harry spluttered, "we knew that _Leo_ thought that, but you…?"

"I'd always hoped you'd be married with five children by now, of course," Anne nodded, taking another sip from her wineglass, "but this is a start."

"You'd… what?"

"Harry, dear, is it so wrong for a mother to have ambitions for her son?"

"You'd… _what?!_"

"Don't tell me that it had never crossed either of your minds…" Anne smiled, causing Harry and Nikki to glance tentatively at each other, comparing the red shades of their cheeks, and secretly wondering exactly what the other was thinking.

"We've… we've only been together for just over a week, Mum." Harry said, trying to keep his tone of voice neutral; what if Nikki didn't feel the same way?

"Officially." Anne said, standing up to clear the plates away, "but in reality you've been together for almost six years. It just took the threat of death from the Mafia to make you realise it."

She smiled as she carried the empty dinner-plates from the room, wondering to herself whether she had really crossed the line, or whether she'd just told them both exactly what they needed to hear.

* * *

**A/N: Next chapter's not written yet, again… but I could really do with cheering up, so I thought I'd publish this and see what your reviews turn out like ;) XX**


	23. Chances

**A/N: Have to admit that this chapter's title comes from the 'Glee' soundtrack… feeling all :( at the moment, and it's making me smile, so… hee hee x**

* * *

**Chances**

"Nikki?" Harry asked, later that night, as he climbed into bed beside her. She was sitting up, leaning against her pillow, with her bedside light on, and her knees, under the duvet, pulled to her, and she was completely engrossed in the book she was resting on them.

"Mmm?" she asked, glancing up and smiling. It always astounded her that they had ever got so far as being able to comfortably climb into bed beside each other, and it always made her heart race, too.

"What Mum was saying earlier…" he hedged, "you… you didn't seem too shocked by it?"

"No." she smiled, "I wasn't."

"Why?" he asked, leaning towards her and stroking down her jaw with his thumb.

"Honestly?" she asked, leaning in to his touch, and smiling contentedly.

"Really." Harry confirmed, crossing the fingers of his other hand under the duvet, and praying that she would answer the way he hoped she would.

"Because I'd always kind of hoped the same hopes." Nikki smiled, resting her hand on top of his. "Because Leo and your Mum weren't the only ones who thought that we belonged together."

"You…" Harry began, trailing off, "you…"

"I love you, Harry." Nikki smiled, leaning towards him, "and I always, always have, from that very first time you told me which desk was yours."

She closed the gap between them, kissing him gently on the lips before leaning back, and tossing her book absentmindedly across to the bedside table. As she lay down, she heard Harry whisper "I knew that there was something about that desk…", before he pulled her to him, and wrapped an arm around her.

"Of course there was." She smiled. "I love your desk almost as much as I love you."

"Would you have reacted differently if the desk's mother asked you about your feelings regarding marriage, though?" Harry asked, speaking into her hair, as he nuzzled his head up against hers, breathing in her Nikki-ish smell, and feeling, suddenly, like nothing in the world could ever be scary again – not even the mobsters who were waiting for them somewhere in the vicinity of the Lyle centre.

"Probably." Nikki admitted. "I don't think I've ever had a single fantasy about marrying a desk. Yours, or anyone else's, actually…"

"That _is_ reassuring." Harry told her, smiling and feeling around for her hand, which he found, and took, squeezing it gently. "Do you not think that it's a bit soon to be talking about this kind of thing, though?"

"No." Nikki answered, perfectly certain, "because the last week and a half has aged me more than anything else ever has. It feels like it's been a year and a half, and I've spent so long worrying and crying and panicking and thinking… and the only times I've ever felt happy or safe or comfortable or _good_ have been when I've been with you. The thought that you were always there, and that I could have a Harry-hug any time I needed got me through the bad days before, but since…" she trailed off, squeezing his hand again, under the covers, "since this," she said, eventually, "since this, everything feels so much better."

"I know exactly what you mean." Harry smiled, leaning down to kiss the side of her neck, and feeling her smile above him, "and I like that you make me feel safe, too."

"I don't ever want this to change."

"I don't, either." Harry smiled, "except, you know, the whole being-chased-by-scary-gunmen-and-not-being-able-to-go-home-or-talk-at-work thing."

"Except for that, yes." Nikki agreed.

They lay in comfortable silence for a few minutes, before Nikki leaned over to turn off her lamp. Eventually, just as Nikki was drifting off, Harry spoke again, in a hoarse, sleepy whisper; "I never thought I'd have a chance at this… at feeling happy like this."

"Me neither." Nikki yawned.

"Would it be completely weird if I said that I think my mother's right?" Harry asked, pulling Nikki closer to him, and kissing the top of her head again. "And that we should be married?"

"If it means that I can feel like this forever, I don't think so." Nikki smiled.

"I hoped you'd say that." Harry smiled. "I love you."

"I love you too," Nikki yawned. "But I would really like to get some sleep now."

"Good night, Niks." Harry smiled.

"Na-night." She mumbled, childlike.

Harry drifted off into thought, for a moment – thinking about what they'd just said, and what it meant – and the next time that reality called to him, he noticed that Nikki had slumped closer to him, and was breathing delicately, fast asleep in his arms, perfectly happy, and perfectly safe.

*

_Neither of us thought that we would ever have a chance at happiness like this. We never thought that we'd feel so loved, and so secure, as we did, together…_

_You only get a chance, a chance like this one, once in a lifetime, and, looking back, I'm glad that it had to come then. I'm glad that I had Harry with me – had Harry loving me – during the darkest and lightest days of my existence._

_Chance, then, was not on our side; fate was playing against us. But, together, we were unstoppable…_

_*_

"Nikki…" Harry murmured, as he anxiously shook her awake, the next morning. "Come on, Nikki…"

She blinked, bleary eyed, and smiled up at him. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Nikki…" Harry smiled, too, any trace of anxiety dissolving, as he leant down to kiss her. "Nice of you to rejoin us in the land of the living…"

"No problem." She smiled. "Why so early, anyway?"

"I thought we might have a clearer run at getting to work without being seen if we went early."

"Good thought." She nodded, "well done."

"Contrary to popular belief, Doctor Alexander," Harry laughed, "I actually do have a brain…"

"Wow." Nikki laughed, pulling herself out of bed, and allowing him to help her up, "I'd never have known."

"Oh, ha ha." Harry jibed, poking Nikki in the ribs, and realising exactly how ticklish she was simultaneously.

"I…" she gasped between laughs, "I wasn't joking…"

"Me neither." Harry smiled, sticking his tongue out at her, "now, are we going to work or not?"

"We probably should, yeah…" Nikki sighed, glancing at the clock: it wasn't even four am. "Do you think we'll manage to get there, get the evidence tested, and get out before they even realise?"

"No." Harry answered, fairly, "but we have to try." Nikki nodded, and Harry continued; "now, go get some clothes on. You can't go dressed like that."

"Leo might like seeing me in my underwear."

"That," Harry laughed, wincing, "did not bare thinking about…"

*

_Until… until…_

* * *

**A/N: Sorry, not a very serious chapter… I needed some gooey happiness in my life this afternoon :) xxx**


	24. Until

**Until**

"Doctor Alexander?" Charlie whispered, coming up to Nikki as she sat impatiently waiting for results from the only evidence that they had so far procured. She glanced up and smiled at the younger woman, nonverbally telling her to continue. "There's someone in reception for you, Doctor Alexander." Charlie explained. "She's PNG, but she insists on seeing you."

Instinctively, Nikki knew who it was; it was Alana. She was police, so she was PNG, of course, but then it could have been anyone. Something inside her, though, was telling Nikki that it was Alana out there, waiting for her – and that it must be something serious, for her to risk coming by in daylight, in full view of everyone, when she could be caught at any moment.

That morning, of course, everything had gone far too smoothly; she and Harry had arrived early, unseen, and they'd managed to sort some tests out on the evidence they'd found, and they'd managed to see Leo, and whisper some form of conversation in the locker-room, with one of the taps on to drown out the sound of their words. Effectively, everything had gone to plan. It stood to reason, now, that something had to go wrong.

*

_Chance, then, was not on our side; fate was playing against us. But, together, we were unstoppable… Until… until… Alana. Until Alana, we were unstoppable._

_*_

"Doctor Alexander, Doctor Cunningham." Alana smiled, greeting them as she stood up, holding her hand out for them to shake. When they just stood and stared at her, she lowered it, awkwardly, and said "I suppose you want me to get to the point?"

"That would be nice." Harry said, trying not to sound as harsh as he knew that he automatically would; he, too, had realised what Alana's presence meant.

"They know." She said, simply, her auburn hair swinging as she turned her head to smile sympathetically at them. "They know what you found, and they think it's likely to be the kind of evidence which could properly be used against them, and so they're not going to let you walk away. But," she paused, shaking her head slightly, "then you know that, don't you?"

"Yes." Nikki nodded, "we thought they knew."

"And the rest – we thought that, too." Harry added.

"We were lucky to get away last night; things could have been far worse, then."

"They… didn't follow you?" Alana asked, raising her eyebrows in shock.

"No." Harry said, "we don't think so."

"That's… different." She paused, contemplating her next statement carefully; she had to be very careful about what she told them, she knew, because if they were too many steps ahead, her bosses, and her bosses' bosses, would realise. "But, this time, they will. And… they won't let you walk away from this. They probably won't let you leave the building… alive."

"So, you've come to warn us that we're going to die." Harry muttered, bitterly; Nikki had thought, all along, that he'd found it hard to trust her, or to accept what she was saying, although she'd never quite been able to put her finger on why. Maybe, though, now she'd found it; Harry Cunningham didn't want to die, and he saw Alana, sweet, young, and innocent Alana, as the Angel of Death. In a way, Nikki supposed, she was.

"No." Alana said, causing both Harry and Nikki's hearts to jump; they had, without noticing it, taken each other's hands for comfort, and they both felt the other jolt at this one, small word. "I haven't. I've… I've come to arm you."

"What?" Nikki asked; surely she'd heard wrongly… surely?

"I've come to arm you. I know it's wrong, and I know you may not want to fight, but you're good people, and you deserve your lives so much more than they do. You deserve the chance to be truly happy, and you deserve to live out your old age in peace, with more grandchildren than you can count…"

She sniffed, and wiped a tear from her eye as she said this, and Nikki realised that Alana had been contemplating her own mortality; she had said all of this, because it was what she wanted for herself. She had said all of this because she wanted to give them a chance at life, when she knew that hers was probably going to be taken from her, and soon. She was giving them a chance at happiness that she knew she could never have, and Nikki was _so_ grateful for that that she couldn't even find the words. Instead, she wrapped an arm around Harry, and leant up to kiss him gently on the cheek, lingering a second too long, before she turned back to Alana, smiling her thanks.

"So," Alana continued, reaching into her handbag and pulling out a plastic carrier bag with a black, shapeless item (or two?) inside, "I want you to have this."

This; a gun. This; something both of them had prayed they would never have to hold… because they saw, all too often, the destruction that one small, black, shapeless item in a plastic carrier bag could do, and they knew how it could tear worlds apart.

They knew, too, though, that they would rather have torn someone else's world apart – preferably the world of whoever was behind this – than have theirs – their new, happy, cosy, love-filled world – torn apart for them, and so they smiled, gratefully, and took the carrier bag from Alana, and nodded their thanks, and watched, apprehensively, as she pulled a scarf over her head, to disguise her identity, before leaving the building.

She had given them her only safety net, to let them have the future she never could.

*

_We knew, of course, what to do with a weapon like that. We'd never guessed we'd have to use it, but we knew how, if it came to that. Which it would; which it always would._

_If we were honest, we'd both known, from the night with the man and the blacked-out windows and the pistol, what was coming; we'd known it would always come to this._

_The final battle; the showdown; the end._

* * *

**A/N: Sorry it's such a short chapter… but it's probably too angsty to have been drawn out! **


	25. Anticipation

**Anticipation**

_If we were honest, we'd both known, from the night with the man and the blacked-out windows and the pistol, what was coming; we'd known it would always come to this._

_The final battle; the showdown; the end._

_All we had left now was the anticipation – we knew what was coming, and they knew what was coming, and yet, like predator and prey, we were both waiting for the strike._

*

"No point worrying about being bugged now." Harry commented, as he lead Nikki back into the lab. "We're about to die anyway."

"We're about to die…" Nikki echoed. "I…" she swallowed back tears, and allowed Harry to pull her close to him, always wary of the volatile package in the carrier bag in his hand. He stroked her hair, soothingly, with one hand, and she could feel him nodding, and sobbing too, above her. They both knew, now, that death was inevitable. It was the end of the line.

There was no "unless": just the tiny chance that they might get there first – that they might take the first shot, and that they might strike, and win.

Even that, though, was small comfort.

*

Shuddering, Alana walked away, her scarf pulled closely around her face, and dark glasses obscuring her eyes. She knew, though, that she would be seen; there was no escaping. Something about her – her coat, her clothing, something – would surely give her away.

As she walked through the university, going out a different way than she came in, she noticed something, out of the corner of her eye, and she felt her heart sink; they were there. They were all around, but most specifically, they were _there_.

Sitting there, in the car, watching her, and waiting.

In the car, with the blacked out windows, and the bullet-proofing, and the official look, which meant that it was overlooked by everyone else.

She, though, knew different; it was them. It was always them…

She lowered her head, and pulled her bag closer to her, and walked purposefully on, trying not to let her face betray so much as a glance in their direction; so much as an iota of fear. She needed to make it through the next couple of days. She could die then; once they were safe, and once they had it all worked out. _Then_ they could kill her. But only then.

*

Hours later, in the locker room, again, with the taps on, again, and the waiting; Harry, Nikki, and Leo, standing round, the shapeless black object in the carrier bag between them, hatching a plan;

"There has to be another way." Leo stated, for the seven hundredth time. "There _has_ to."

"There isn't. How could there be?" Harry replied, leaning back against the wall, and allowing himself to slip to the floor, the very picture of dejection. "What other option is there?"

"None." Nikki said, mirroring Harry, and landing on the floor beside him, where he took her hand.

"There has to be. Just… say we all make it out alive tonight. Imagine that. What then?"

"We'd have to go into hiding, I suppose." Nikki replied; it was CSI speaking, not really Nikki, but it was nearer to a plan than they had come all afternoon.

"Where?" Leo asked, feeling like he was trying to coax a simple answer out of a small child.

Nikki glanced at Harry, and Harry glanced at Nikki, and both shrugged; "we'd have to pay in cash, wherever we went, and use false names – that kind of thing" Nikki answered, eventually. "But it wouldn't work for very long."

"How long do you think it could work for?"

"A few days, at most."

"Then we have a few extra days." Leo announced, triumphant. "That has to be something."

"What can we do in those few days, though?" Harry asked, determined to see the worst-case scenario.

"Find the proof that Alana needs, and get it to her. Stay safe. Stay alive." Leo said, flatly. This wasn't a game anymore; this was war. This was real.

"Ok." Nikki said, "so where do we go? If we do get out tonight?"

"We all go our separate ways, and meet somewhere we know is safe, somewhere that they'll never think of." Leo answered, glad that Nikki was willing to try to join in; glad that she was clinging to life as much as he was. They both had people to love, now, and neither of them was willing to let that go. He was surprised, though, that Harry didn't share the same fighting spirit. He supposed, perhaps, that it was the fact that Nikki was in danger that was worrying him, and he felt that he understood. Had it been Janet, and not Nikki… it didn't bare thinking about.

"Where?" Nikki asked, desperately, "where will they never think of?"

"What do they know about us? That's the first question. And how do they know it?" Leo replied.

"Everything." Harry moaned, "they know _everything_."

"They didn't know where you were last night." Leo pointed out, "they never worked out that you'd go to spend time with your mother. Why?"

"Because Harry's relationship with his mother is so… unconventional." Nikki replied. "They go for months without speaking, but when they do, everything's alright again."

"So?" Leo asked.

"So we go back there. We all go back there, and we all go back there _separately._" Nikki replied. "I think they've been watching us for a long time, I really do. But I think they've been watching us sporadically. And that has given us the edge."

"Or, rather, it's given Harry's Mum the edge."

"Well, yes." Nikki conceded, "because she's slipped under the radar."

"You really think my Mum's safe?" Harry asked, turning his head to face Nikki, concern etched across his face. Nikki knew how shaky Harry's relationship with his mother could be, and she hated to put it under any kind of strain, but it was the only option she could think of; they had nothing left. Harry's mother was the only safety net they could fall back into, except, possibly for South Africa… which was too far away to help them, and which they probably knew about anyway, if they'd done any kind of research into her life. Which they obviously had…

"Yes." She replied, eventually; no sense in worrying him any more than he was already worried; "and besides, she's the only card we have left to play."

*

_The plan was… mediocre, at best. It would do, for now, and we all knew that. We knew that it was a last, desperate bit for escape; that it was a last, desperate hope._

"_The only card we have left to play", I said. But, I wasn't quite right, was I?_

_There was another card to play. Death._

_And it came all too soon._

* * *

**A/N: DUN DUN DUUUUUN… ha ha :) **

**I'm getting to the really, really tense, must-be-written-cleverly-or-you'll-all-figure-it-out-too-soon bit now, so updates will be shorter and slower :)**

**Oh, and don't forget – if you have twitter, SWUK has appointed me twitter mistress in chief ;) so DM me here or there, or message _amyct to get on the list!**

**Reviews are love. In case you forgot. xxxx**


	26. Battle

**A/N: This chapter _is not_ the end. However it might look. Don't give up on this story yet! :)**

**I cried as I wrote this. In a morbid way, I hope you do, too. xxxx**

* * *

**Battle**

"_The only card we have left to play", I said. But, I wasn't quite right, was I?_

_There was another card to play. Death._

_And it came all too soon._

_*_

Harry had a plan. He was sure that it wouldn't work, but as they were down to playing their last card, he thought that perhaps, maybe, just maybe, it might be worth a try. He thought that, perhaps, it might be the one thing that could save her. Because it would be Nikki that they came after; she was the one with the brains, and the sense of duty; she was the one who was so hell-bent on justice, always. She was the one, after all, who had started this whole thing off for them, what felt like a forever ago, and so, of course, they would come after her. So, it was her that he had to concentrate on protecting.

His plan was stupid, and it was crazy, and it was unlikely ever to work, partly because it was contrived of an idea cobbled together from various TV shows he'd watched, and from the memory of how different Nikki looked with darker hair, and from the thought that he absolutely, unequivocally _had_ to make sure she pulled through this alive, because he had so much he had never said to her, and because she had as good as told him she'd marry him, and because of the way that she made him feel.

His plan, too, was the reason that he hadn't spoken up whilst Leo was talking about _his_ plan; Harry's plan needed to remain secret, until they were out of the building, and until they were all, safely, at his mother's house, because he knew that when Nikki heard it, she would react. She wouldn't be able to keep her voice down. She wouldn't be able to listen, placidly, without giving anything away to the bugs. She would scream, and she would shout, and she would tell him he was stupid, and she would need to be persuaded that it was absolutely the only way. She would need to be made to see – because, wonderful as she was, Nikki often suffered from tunnel-vision, and she would not be able to accept that this plan could possibly work, because it was so far out of the ordinary, and because it relied on so many, crazy, unpredictable factors. Nikki was a scientist through and through, Harry knew; she would always put her work before herself, and this time, she was putting her work before her life.

His plan would require her to do exactly that… just, in a different way.

His plan would require her to die, too, and that part was choking him up and killing him a little inside, as he sat and watched her looking through the test sheets, and hiding files on a memory stick to carry with them, if they ever left the building alive; she was cataloguing the evidence, preparing for the only possible eventuality, apart from death, that she could see. Life. Life was the only other option, in Nikki's mind.

In Harry's, death was.

Death, Nikki's death, was the _only_ option.

*

Darkness was descending, in more ways than one; the night was drawing in, and the moon was bathing the university campus in a pale, eerie glow – the perfect atmosphere, thought Jenkins, for a battle. The war, too, was coming; the men in black, and their guns, and their war-hardened faces – men trained in the fight, men who knew how to kill another instinctively, and men who would not have flinched at the thought of wiping Nikki Alexander off the face of the Earth – were descending on the campus, and making their way through the security posts by showing their police identification, or the cards which declared them professors of obscure sciences unknown. They walked in, unquestioned. The security guards hadn't been alerted to the possible presence of the mafia on campus that night, and so they hadn't bothered to check for weapons. All it would have taken was one check, one metal detector, or one careful look in the right direction, and the pistols hidden in pockets would have been noticed. The sub-machineguns in bags had been left behind; what were they fighting? Scientists. Only scientists.

Their main target, they knew, was a beautiful, waif woman, who looked like one slap across the face would knock her for six. All they had to do was hit her, and she would fall. All they had to do was hit her, and they could put one shot in her chest, and she would be gone.

The men, they thought, would perhaps be more difficult. But, all in all, they didn't matter. So long as the woman was dead, they would be covered, because it was she who was leading the men, and her death would be warning enough. The men would not fight on without the woman there for them.

Especially, apparently, the younger one. "Besotted" was the word that their scout had used. "Utterly besotted", he'd said. "Take the woman out and the man will die, too. He'll die inside, and that will be even better. Less to cover up." Was what he'd said.

And they listened.

The only reason that there were so many of them, so many men in black, crawling all over the campus, like ants, was for insurance. They could cause havoc, of something went wrong, and they could stop them if they needed to. They were only going to send one of them in; one was all it would take. One man; one slap; one shot; one death – and then, out.

That was all.

The others would only watch. They would watch from the sidelines – hidden in bushes, along the perimeter, and they would wait for the blackest of the black cars, with the blacked out windows and the bullet proofing, to pass them, and to leave, and then they would know it was over. Then, they would go in, and they would find the body, and they would dispose of it. They would have their police identification, and that would mean that they could get away with anything. They could get away with murder.

Literally.

And so, the man from before – the man in the black, with the listening equipment, who made notes at the desk; the man who had been pulling the strings all along, and the man who was behind it all; the man who was so high up in society that no one would ever have expected it of him; the man who could do literally anything he wanted, and who could dispose of literally anyone he wanted – crossed the campus, alone, in the knowledge that his accomplices and his staff were there, in the background, waiting. He walked the lonely road to the door of the Lyle centre, and he swiped Charlie's stolen entry pass, and he made his way through into reception, where he flashed the night officer and smile (a scary smile of the kind you don't question. Ever.) before he swiped his card, again, to walk into the inner offices, and do his job.

*

"Ready?" Harry whispered, having received the text message from the night officer, alerting him to presence unknown, and presence dressed in black, in the building. He was crouching behind on of the tables in the cutting room, with Leo and Nikki on either side of him. Leo nodded; Nikki swallowed, and clutched the shapeless black item, the pistol, in the carrier bag, tightly. She would have to cock the safety catch now, before the man heard them, and before he found them. She would have to.

They had discussed battle plans earlier that evening, shortly before the men in black began crawling around the campus perimeter. Alana had not only left them a gun; she had also left them a copy of the battle plan. For this, they knew, she would pay with her life. They could only pray that she would survive long enough to do what she needed to do, or to put them in touch with someone they could truly trust in the police force. Perhaps, they thought, she had left them another clue, somewhere. Perhaps.

Her sacrifice, though, was their gain, for they now knew what they must do.

Fear etched across her face, then, Nikki cocked the safety catch, and, placing the gun down on the floor as quietly as she could, she leant across to kiss Harry. It was a last kiss; it was a painful kiss; it was a kiss which said 'I love you, now, and forever. Until death us do part. Eternally.' It was a kiss which marked the end of it all, and as Nikki stood up, there was a tear in her eye, because she knew that she had only one chance, now, at life.

She didn't know Harry's plan.

She didn't have his faith.

She didn't feel the confidence in herself that he felt in her.

He squeezed her hand one, last time as she stood up, and walked away, barefoot, so that her heels wouldn't give her way, with the pistol in the carrier bag (so as not to leave DNA evidence, supposing she ever made it out alive. Which she wouldn't) clutched, tightly, in her hand.

"I love you." He whispered, and she nodded. She couldn't speak; she was choking on anger, and fear, and bitterness, and grief. She was grieving for Harry, even though he would always live on. She was grieving her loss of Leo, even though he was never a target. She was for the life she had never had a chance to live; she was grieving for the life Alana had bequeathed to her, and for the life which would, all too soon, be snatched from her.

And so she walked. She walked away, and she walked to her inevitable death.

*

"_I'm a big girl," I told Leo, so long ago, now, "I can fight my own battles."_

_But… I couldn't, could I? Not really… not if it ended up like this… _

_I thought, all along, that I was invincible, and that they would never dare hurt me… that they'd not come after me, or make me fight this crazy war. But, they did… of course they did. They were always going to…_

_I gave up my fight so early on, it seems, with hindsight – I was fighting a losing battle from the very beginning. Before we even realised what was happening, the net was tightening around us, pulling us in, and trapping us, so that my death was the only outcome possible…_

*

A gunshot went off in the distance, and Harry, crouching, hidden, suddenly buckled, tears of rage and fear and frustration and grief pouring down his cheeks; it was over, then… it was the end… the moment they had all prayed would never have to happen… the moment which, inevitably, did.


	27. Corpse

**A/N: I thought I should share with you all that I actually dreamed about Silent Witness last night. I clearly need to a) get out more and b) finish this story, sooner, rather than later! :) xx**

* * *

**Corpse**

Everything was going exactly to plan. The men with the guns who were crawling like ants around the edge of the university campus saw the car with the blacked out windows drive away about twenty minutes after the man with the gun who dressed from black in head to toe had entered the Lyle Centre.

None of them noticed, though, that neither of the two male doctors had left. Neither of them noticed that neither of the two male doctors had fled. They should have, but they didn't.

Maybe, then, things weren't quite going to plan.

*

_The end came like a rush of blood to the head, and then I was floating, unknowing, and confused. I didn't understand; couldn't understand; couldn't comprehend what it was that was happening to me._

_Death wasn't easy, like they always say; there was no white light to follow, no heavenly host beckoning me in._

_Then again, my death wasn't exactly conventional._

*

That was their queue; the car was out of the security gates, no questions asked, and now it was their turn. All of them, over twenty in all, began to slowly scuttle towards the doors of the forensics department, and into the Lyle centre. They were all needed, because there were a hundred different jobs that needed doing, from wiping CCTV to clearing up the body, and from wiping away all DNA evidence to disposing of the other eight bodies – the eight bodies from before. This, the man in black who had been pulling the strings all along had told them, had gone on far too long. This had to end, and it had to end soon. They had to end it, and they had to end it now.

The night officer wasn't there, as they entered the Lyle centre. That should have been the first sign; they hadn't seen him escape either. The male doctors weren't there, either – they had been assured, by the man in the black, that they would find the two male doctors tied up in the first room that they came to. They had been told that all they would have to do would be walk in, through reception, and there they would find the older man, and the woman's boyfriend, tied up, duct tape over their mouths. All they would have to do to them would be ignore them. So long as the evidence was gone, no one would believe a word they said, anyway, so where would be the harm in letting them watch – in letting them slowly break as they saw the woman they both loved, albeit in different ways, being mopped up and disposed of?

They weren't there, though, to watch, or to do anything else. They weren't there, and nor was the night officer.

The men, lead by Jenkins, were highly skilled at clearing up messes, and at crawling, unseen, around the perimeters of buildings. One thing that they weren't, though, was intelligent. They couldn't have fathomed the mystery that they were solving if an answer had miraculously presented itself, and told them. They didn't stop to think, when the male doctors and the night officer weren't there, that something might be wrong.

Jenkins did. He hadn't made DSI through corruption; only once he'd reached that position had he been corrupted. He was clever, and he was calculating and cold, and he could fathom out a mystery like no one else on Earth. He was the Met's golden boy; the one they put on all the toughest cases. Like this one. His instinct told him that something was wrong. He pieced together the signs, and he worked it out; something had gone horribly, terribly, drastically wrong.

"STOP!" he shouted, as his men began crawling into the offices at the front of the building. Drones that they were, they stopped, and they retreated, exactly as they had been told to, and they obediently allowed their leader to enter the offices in their place, his gun held out in front of him, for protection, swivelling round and checking every empty space in a way that they could only find comical, never having been trained the way that he had. They were the worker ants, and Jenkins was Queen.

As he worked his way deeper into the building, though, the eerie quiet began to effect him; it wasn't only his brain, now, that was telling him how something here wasn't quite right. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck had begun to stand up; he was beginning to lose his grip on his gun, and a sick feeling was developing in the pit of his stomach, and he just couldn't quite work out why.

He worked methodically, as his training had told him to. He worked through the labs, and the cutting room, and all of the offices, and through each cupboard and storage space, and the shower rooms and toilets, until there was only one room left to him. The locker room.

Something about that phrase, "locker room", was making him uneasy. He couldn't work out what. It just seemed such a bizarre place for his boss to have shot her; she wouldn't have hidden in the locker room, he guessed, because she would have been trapped, there. There was only one door, and the room was long and narrow, without anywhere evident to physically hide. The only way he could have shot her there was if she had put up a fight, and been cornered in there – and why would she have done that? That would have meant that she had known they were coming… and how would she have known that?

Swallowing, hard, to try to relieve the sickness in the pit of his stomach, Jenkins tentatively pushed open the door of the locker room, and poked his head in, glancing around, before his eyes fell across the bloodied corpse.

The sick feeling in his stomach, then, could hold itself down no longer. A single bullet wound in the back of the neck; a calculated shot from someone who knew, well, how to kill someone…

The only problem was, it was the wrong corpse.

A calculated shot from someone who knew, well, how to kill someone, because they spent all day, everyday, examining dead bodies.

_She_ had killed _him_.


	28. Aftermath

**A/N: For everyone who said that they _neeeeeeeeded_ to know what happens next, but especially for Charlotte, who was so close to the right answer that it scared me. xx**

* * *

**Aftermath**

"Are you sure that this is a good idea, Harry?" Leo asked, for the twelfth time in a minute.

"Yes." Harry answered, just the same as he had every other time he'd been asked. "They won't work out what we've done until it's too late." He smiled, turning to Nikki, in the back seat, and said, "quick thinking by the way, taking his car keys."

"Someone mentioned that we probably needed to get out of here alive." She replied, smiling, "I merely provided the means."

"Still…" Harry nodded, waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, "it was quick thinking. All that CSI really did pay off in the end."

"It did."

"Are you sure your Mum won't mind us all staying, Harry?" Leo asked, now. He was clearly agitated, which was odd. Leo had no right to be agitated; he'd known he was safe all along. He'd hidden, with Harry, and he'd hidden well. He hadn't had to walk out into the middle of the battle, and corner the man with the gun, and shoot him the way that Nikki had. She, on the other hand, was perfectly calm. She still had her life, and she still had her reason for living. What could possibly go wrong now?

*

_The one thing that I learned, through all of this, is never to ask 'what could possibly go wrong?', because as soon as you do that, something will. That's a scientifically proven fact, and my life was the experiment that proved it._

_*_

"Hello, Anne, nice to see you again. Can I borrow your phone to call Janet?" Leo asked, the second that Harry's mother opened the door. She didn't even blink; she knew, vaguely, what Harry and Nikki were involved with, and so she merely nodded, and opened the door further, to let Leo in, before glancing around for Harry and Nikki.

Leo noticed this, and smiled, as he waited for the dialling tone to kick in; "they'll be here in about half an hour. They dropped me off, and they've gone to dump the car."

"Excuse me?" Anne asked, blinking, again. She was trying very hard not to act like she was confused, even though she so evidently was, Leo noticed, and he smiled again, taking pity. He was going to get in contact with Janet any second, and he was going to make sure she was safe, and that would make everything alright. He could spare Anne a second to explain where her son and his partner were:

"We… stole a car, to get away. We stole _their_ car, to be precise, and they'll be searching for it. So, they've gone to dump it, and they'll be back soon." He explained, the phone still held to his ear.

"Oh…" Anne replied, flatly. It was almost nine o'clock at night, and her son's boss had just turned up on her doorstep, explaining that his two colleagues, the two people she valued above almost everything, had just helped him steal a car, and were going to dump it somewhere, so that they weren't followed by mafia dons.

As she nodded, blankly, and wandered through to the kitchen to put the kettle on, she wondered what she had done to deserve this.

'Put the kettle on.' She told herself. 'A cup of tea solves everything.'

*

"How far is it back to your Mum's?" Nikki asked, as she helped Harry push the car with the blacked out windows down a hill and into a ditch at the bottom of an unmarked field. Apparently, the field did not belong to anyone, which made it a very handy place to dump a stolen car; no one would phone the police and report a car having suddenly materialised in their field if no one owned the field, would they?

Harry shrugged. "Maybe five miles." He hedged. He knew that it was further than that, but Nikki had just shot a man dead, and was on the run from the mob, who were sure to want revenge, and so she probably didn't need to know that she still had to hike eight miles across open country in completely unsuitable footwear to make it to safety.

"_Five miles_?" she sighed, "I'm so tired, though…"

"Me too." Harry nodded, taking her hand, and leading the way back up the bank and towards the winding footpath which would eventually lead to his mother's back garden, "but we have to get back, don't we?"

He leant down and kissed her head as they began walking, and she smiled up at him. The fresh air, and the fields, and the grass surrounding them made them feel more secure; they were secluded, and they were all alone. There was a gun in Nikki's handbag, slung over her shoulder, still, just in case, but for now, they were safe.

They walked in comfortable silence, admiring the beauty of the stars above them, or else just drifting away into their own thoughts for a few miles, before Harry eventually spoke;

"You know, they're still going to try to find us. Especially now."

"I know." Nikki replied, her head tilted to take in the natural panorama above her. As she spoke, she moved her head slightly, so that it rested on Harry's shoulder. "But I don't even care, right now."

"You should."

"I killed a man, today, Harry. Let me try to forget." She replied, sounding perfectly calm and controlled. Harry knew her better than most, though, and he could hear the tension in her tone, and he didn't know how to deal with that. Of course, she needed time to come to terms with her actions, but in order for her to have the time to, she would have to so something to safeguard herself from his colleagues and his cronies. She needed to make her own physical safety a priority, above and beyond her mental security.

He tried to explain this to her, but she merely shrugged. She couldn't see a way to make herself safe, she told him. How could she _possibly_ make herself safe? They were the _mafia_. They were going to find her, no matter what she did. They had probably already killed Alana, who was their only lifeline. What else could they do?

"You could die." Harry said. The way he said it, though, made Nikki look up, confusion and horror and fear and pain on her face, and in her eyes. Harry hadn't meant that if she didn't do something, she could did: the way he had said it had made it clear to her that he saw it as a viable option. "It's the only option." He explained, calmly. He'd obviously thought this through, which is what made it even worse.

She dropped his hand as she read his expression, and she threw her arms into the air, demanding to know what he meant, and how he could possibly see _that_, of all things, as a viable option.

"No, Nikki," he explained, patiently, "I don't mean like _that_…"

"What _do_ you mean, then, Harry?" she demanded, wheeling on him, as angry as he had ever seen her, "because 'you could die', in my book, only comes with _one_ meaning…"


	29. Options

**Options**

_Death, in Harry's book, apparently had more than one meaning, and the meaning that he had chosen was one I had never even considered. It was, however, a viable option._

_It was, as Harry said, the _only_ option; and it is the reason that I am still standing today. It is the reason that I am still able to recount my story; it is the reason that I can warn everyone else of the dangers of my life, and of my profession, and it is the single reason that I am alive and breathing._

_The end came like a rush of blood to the head – utter confusion - and then I was floating, in a limbo between two lives. I didn't understand; couldn't understand; couldn't comprehend what it was that was happening to me. Because, I wasn't Nicola Alexander any more. I was someone else. And I didn't know how to deal with that._

_*_

"I don't understand." Leo stuttered. He, Harry, Nikki, Janet and Anne were all sitting around Harry's mother's kitchen table, and Harry was explaining his plan. His stupid, crazy, last-resort plan… the plan which Nikki had, eventually, reluctantly, agreed to.

"What don't you understand?" Harry demanded, "it's the only option we have left. _Nikki has to die_. It's her that they're after, and it's her that they were going to kill. So…"

"We kill me." Nikki answered. She was strangely calm, again; she was floating, between her two lives, and she was trying to explain her not-quite-suicide to her friends – the friends who were the only family she had. It was an odd feeling, but it was calming her. Once she'd allowed Harry to explain his plan, and once she had allowed herself to understand it, it had made as much sense in her own mind as it had in Harry's. He was right – it was the only option. They had to kill her, and they had to bury her, and they had to let the people behind all of this witness her funeral. It was all that they had left.

"And you don't mind, Nikki?" Janet asked, utterly perplexed. Nikki wasn't surprised by this fact, though; Janet had received a phone-call from her husband at nine o'clock at night explaining that Nikki had shot a man, and that the mafia were therefore after them, and that she had to pack a bag and get a taxi to a house as in the middle of no where as it's possible to be in Greater London, and that she couldn't return to her own life until it was all over.

"No." Nikki replied, honestly. "I don't mind."

"Why?" Janet was entering psychoanalyst mode now, Nikki could see. She swallowed, and decided to explain; everyone was probably wondering. Even Harry. If she was going to wipe herself off the face of the Earth, she supposed she owed them an explanation. They were right to require it, too, because, at first, she'd seen it as the worst possible thing, except the other kind of death. She'd changed her mind, now, though, because she knew what was at stake. It was death, or death. It all depended on which kind of death she chose – and she'd chosen Harry's kind. Of course.

She breathed in deeply, calming herself slightly, and, taking Harry's hand, she began:

"Nothing," she explained, "has ever gone right in my life, has it? My mother, my father, my childhood… until I started working for you, Leo, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was twenty-nine, and I was utterly clueless. I was living a half-life. Until I met all of you, I never had a family. Until Harry and I finally got around to telling each other how we felt, I'd never had a boyfriend I could truly and honestly say that I loved and trusted. My life has, quite honestly, been one disaster after another, hasn't it?

So, I don't mind letting it go. I don't mind leaving it behind. So long as I have all of you, still, and so long as I can still call you my family, then that's all that matters to me. I never liked Nicola Alexander, anyway. Nicola Alexander wasn't me. 'Alexander' ties me to my real family, and I'm quite happy to sever those ties. I didn't really know it until now, but I really do want a fresh start."

*

Harry's mother's living room, the early hours of next morning: Harry and Nikki sat, curled up, on the sofa, holding each other's hands tightly and contemplating the effect of their decision. A fresh start, Nikki said; but she would have to bury her old self. She would have to drop everything that she had ever known, and that must have scared her. Even someone as strong and secure and wonderful as Nikki must be scared by something like that…

The thing that was upsetting her most, though, was that she would have to dye her hair; "I never liked it darker, really." She confessed, "I'm not really sure why I ever went that colour in the first place."

"I think it suited you." Harry said, playing with a loose strand of her white-blonde hair, as it curled down her shoulders, having escaped the ponytail that the rest was tied in.

"I don't." she sighed, sounding very downcast. Something about that made Harry laugh, and she glanced up at him, questioningly.

"If that's the bit you're most scared of, Nikki," he laughed, "I think we probably did choose the right plan."

"Mmmm."

"So." He said, trying to change the subject, "about this new name…"

"Mmmm?"

"I was thinking…"

"Oh, dear Lord, surely not!" she laughed, loosening up slightly; Harry smiled with relief. She was evidently coming round to the idea.

"I'm serious, Nikki…" he warned, unsure of whether his pride could take a knock, given what he was about to ask. She nodded, though, and squeezed his hand, smiling, and he continued. "So, I was wondering… you're going to have to change your name, anyway, and I was thinking… how about we go a step further with that? They…" he paused for a second, breathing deeply; "they won't be looking for a married woman, will they?"

"I'm keeping my new fake surname." Was all Nikki said. "I've chosen it already, and I like it. Besides which, one Doctor Cunningham is more than enough for this world…"

"You… you mean it?!" he asked, his eyes widening in shock at her reply, and its implications, and at her nonchalance.

"Yes."

Harry nodded, equally nonchalantly, pretending, like Nikki had, that this was perfectly normal, and not in any way life-changing.

"So, what was this new name you were thinking of, then?"

*

_Death wasn't easy, like they always say; there was no white light to follow, no heavenly host beckoning me in._

_Then again, my death wasn't exactly conventional. I am still alive_.

* * *

**A/N: If you didn't all work out what you've been missing all along in this chapter, I may be forced to **_**actually**_** kill Nikki.**


	30. Death

**A/N: I can't work out if the last chapter was too cryptic. Please do tell me, and put me out of my misery! :)**

* * *

**Death**

_Leo organised it all, just as Harry had known he would. He organised the wedding, and he organised the funeral. They would happen just days apart. He also organised the new identity – the inevitable death – and the chance for the ghost of Nicola Alexander to reclaim her job, in the weeks or months or years to come._

_He couldn't organise the solving of the mystery, and the provision of evidence for the police, because that was beyond anything he had ever imagined. That was left to Harry, and to my ghost, to solve._

_The rest, though, was ready._

*

"Are you sure about this?" Harry asked, kissing Nikki's temple, as they waited outside the little church near to where Harry's mother lived. Nikki nodded:

"If you're sure, I'm sure." She told him. Harry smiled back at her, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close;

"This is it." He told her, "this is your final act as Nicola Alexander."

"I know." She nodded.

"It's your first act as Nicola Cunningham."

"And my last." She said, smiling sadly. "You don't mind marrying a woman who's going to die in precisely three days time, do you?"

"Of course not." Harry smiled. "I'm really, really looking forward to meeting… oh, what's she called again?" he winked as he said this; he knew how hard Nikki was finding choosing another name.

"Today, she's called Lucy Jennings. Tomorrow, she may well be called something else."

"Unconventional." Harry commented, gently stroking her cheek and leaning in to kiss her one last time as Nikki Alexander.

"I know." Nikki breathed, as she pulled away, "but I'll make my mind up in the end. And besides, you'll be there to help me."

"For always, now." He nodded knotting his hand with hers and pulling it up into their line of sight, "until death do us part." He said the last bit with a playful smirk on his face, and a glint in his eye that Nikki couldn't help but smile back at.

"Will the marriage still be valid if Nikki's dead?" she asked. She was slowly learning to stop referring to herself as 'Nikki'; in three days time, Nikki would be dead and buried.

"Nikki will never have a death certificate." Harry pointed out, "just a gravestone."

"And a ghost." Nikki sighed.

"You won't _ever_ be a ghost." Harry told her, firmly. "You will always be the same woman that I fell in love with so many years ago, and you will always be the same woman that I am marrying in –" – he paused and glanced at his watch – "- precisely twenty minutes time. You'll… you'll just be free of all the constraints on your life at the moment. You'll be free to be you."

"I know." Nikki nodded, "but it feels good to hear someone else say it. I love you."

"I will _always_ love you, no matter what your name is. And you will never, ever be a ghost in my eyes." Harry told her, kissing her forehead once more.

"Good."

*

"I still can't believe this is finally happening…" Anne muttered, as she took her seat in the second row of pews. Leo and Janet, sitting down beside her, nodded; they were all in shock.

"I'm just surprised that they went from friends to lovers to engaged to getting married in just over three weeks…" Leo commented. "I mean… I know that they were never exactly conventional, but _really_…"

"The last three weeks must have aged them so much, though." Janet remarked, "They've both faced their own mortality so many times, lately, that it's only natural that they should cling to any source of comfort and love that they can."

"I can hear you, you know." Harry said, turning behind him from where he stood in front of the altar. "And it's rude to talk about people behind their backs." He took a moment to enjoy the mortified looks on their faces before continuing; "what's taking her so long, by the way? She's only outside. I know, because I drove her."

"She's making an entrance." Janet laughed, just as the organ began to play. "Now, you just watch her walk down that aisle and realise how lucky you are…"

"Oh, I will…" Harry whispered, turning his head again to watch as Nikki walked towards him.

The impromptu nature of the wedding meant that she was only wearing the same dress she'd worn for Leo and Janet's wedding, but she still looked stunning, her newly ochre hair falling in beautiful ringlets, framing her face perfectly. Harry's heart leaped as she caught his eye, and he knew, absolutely, unequivocally, and without a shadow of a doubt that they were doing the right thing.

*

"How does it feel to be Mrs Cunningham?" Harry whispered into Nikki's ear as he led her back down the aisle.

"Very, very nice. It's a shame I can't be for longer." She smiled, leaning up to kiss him. "But maybe I can be, again, one day."

"What's your new surname going to be, by the way?" he asked, conversationally, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her to him.

"I keep changing my mind." She confessed. "It's a toss up between 'Kennedy' and 'Fenwick' at the moment."

"Any particular reason?" Harry wondered, aloud.

"'Fenwick' just sounds nice, I think…" Nikki began, pausing and flushing bright red as they walked out into the cold of early March. Harry noticed this, smiling, and asked, "And 'Kennedy'?"

"It's embarrassing…" she mumbled, turning away and staring at the floor.

"I think you should go for that one then." Harry said, absolute certainty in his voice. "But I'd still quite like to know why…"

"The Vicar of Dibley married a guy named Harry Kennedy." She explained, the redness rising in her cheeks once more as she turned back to face him, "and he was so perfect for her. He kind of reminded me of you."

"Definitely," Harry said, kissing her lightly on the lips, "that one. Definitely."

As he said this, Leo, Janet and his mother joined them, smiling confusedly at them. Harry smiled lopsidedly and explained: "Nikki's just been telling me which surname she's chosen."

"You don't get to be a Cunningham for long, do you, dear?" Anne asked, smiling sadly as Nikki shook her head. "Welcome to the family anyway."

"Thank you." Nikki smiled, as she turned back to Harry; "I just need to think of a first name, now." She told him.

"You'll think of one." He told her, as he took her hand and led her out of the churchyard, where she would be buried in three days time, towards his mother's car. "I know you will. And it will be perfect."

Nikki smiled at this, running some options through her mind; _Ms Jessica Kennedy; Dr Anna Kennedy; Ms Lucy Kennedy; Dr Alice Kennedy; Ms Rosanna Kennedy; Dr Lily Kennedy…_

"What are the options?" Janet asked, as they climbed into the car. Nikki sighed; this was difficult. She squished herself into the middle seat, between Harry and Leo, and wondered where to start.

"My new surname is Kennedy." She explained, dodging Leo's question when he asked her why, "but I have twenty thousand first name options running round my brain…"

*

Two days later, as her husband laid out the clothes for a funeral on the end of their bed in his mother's house, Dr Rosanne Nicola Cunningham Kennedy stared at the computer screen, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Tomorrow, at 1pm, the certificate confirming her new name would arrive. She would just have returned from the funeral of Dr Nicola Alexander, and she would, finally, be able to move on.

The whole process, the part where she became Rosanne, was easy; a few buttons pressed on a computer, and a payment of £40. The rest of it was painful and complicated and it physically hurt to press the "send" button… but it was done, now.

It was over.

*

_Death wasn't easy, like they always say; there was no white light to follow, no heavenly host beckoning me in._

_Then again, my death wasn't exactly conventional. I am still alive_.


	31. Dust

**A/N: Before I give you the final chapter, and before I give you the answers, I need to thank you all for reading, and for reviewing, and for being so lovely and complimentary, and for putting up with the crap along with the good.**

**I think I tied all the ends up; if I didn't, I'm sorry. Perhaps you missed the bit where I wrote the answers – they're sprinkled through the whole story. The again, perhaps not. Perhaps, I'm just an idiot, and I missed something out. Let me know if I did; I'll try to fill the gaps in.**

**This is definitely the end, though. I can now regain my actual, real life. That'll be odd.**

**So, big thanks, and big hugs to:**

**Immortal Spud Thief, Charlotte88, Langfieldl, Chocolate Scones, Hecate28, Shan14, Elynara, MayH, PearlSun, thisisnotreal123, greyswholost, Silver-Ashes and Natalie492.**

**You guys made this whole emotional rollercoaster worthwhile! :)**

**Love, Saffy (aka Amy) xxx**

* * *

**Dust**

_I'd never really given much thought to how I'd die, but I suppose I would have liked to have passed away of old age, in my sleep. In typical style, however, my wish wasn't granted._

_I began this story by saying "my name is Doctor Nicola Alexander and this is the story of how I died." I suppose that it would be more accurate to say that my name was Nicola Alexander, though. I got a second chance at life, the way that so very, very few ever do, and I am eternally grateful._

_In some ways, I suppose, I was lucky to have this chance at all; the war took me early on. I was out of the game, then; I was someone else. I was lucky enough not to have to clear up my own mess. The ones I loved, and the people I valued above it all… they were the ones who had to solve it all. _

_And I had to sit back and let them. That was the hardest part; sitting back and letting them._

_I watched, of course, as they solved it. For days after Nicola's funeral, I watched as they slowly pieced together the clues. I watched as Harry went back to that bench in Trafalgar Square, and I watched as he sat there, thinking it all through, trying to work out how to trace Alana._

_I watched as he had a random, bizarre, and utterly brilliant thought; I watched as he leant under the bench and found the message she had sellotaped there, telling him exactly whom he could trust, in the police force, and I watched as he took Nikki's memory stick, and all of the evidence he had accumulated, to the police._

_And then I waited, with him, holding his hand, and praying._

_It took weeks, of course; weeks before anyone got back to us, and weeks before the police called me in for interview. But they did, and here I am. You have my story. You have my side of it._

_You know what happened, and you know how it happened, and you know, now, what really happened to Nicola Alexander._

_You can charge me with murder, if you like. I don't deny that Nicola Alexander killed the man who caused it all; but, Nicola Alexander is dead. I am merely her ghost; the imprint she left for the world._

*

A churchyard, in March. The sunlight peaked through the clouds, and caught on the rain drops… and the tears. Two men, dressed in black, stood close together, holding their wives close against the bitter cold, as they watched a coffin being slowly lowered into the ground.

The older couple stared blankly down into the pit, their faces stoical. The younger man, too, was expressionless; the younger woman, though, cried bitter, painful tears into her husband's shoulder; mourning the loss of her own, old life; burying everything that was ever wrong with her life. He leant down and kissed her on the top of the head, carefully teasing a strand of tawny hair back into place, as the priest began his mantra;

"Ashes to ashes; dust to dust…"

"Are you alright?" Harry whispered, as he watched his wife sprinkle soil onto her own coffin. She nodded, letting him wipe a tear from her eye; much as she might look like she was finding this hard, it was surprisingly liberating. She was a new person. She was no longer troubled, single, lonely Nikki Alexander, with no family, and no connections: she was Rosanne Kennedy, headstrong, independent, married, and loved, with a family – a self-made family – who loved her more than she could ever know.

"I'm fine." She assured him. "Absolutely fine."

"Good." Harry nodded. "And by the way, the hair suits you."

She raised her eyebrows at him for that and shook her head in disbelief when all he could say was "what?"

"We're at a funeral." She told him. "The funeral for someone I once held very dear to me. Please, try to act appropriately…"

"Of course." Harry smiled, pulling her to him again, and holding her close, his arms around her as they both watched the coffin being covered, buried forever. He kissed the top of her head, and said "I still hold her very dear. I still love her with all my heart."

"Me too." Rosa confessed, "me too." She paused a moment, leaning closer into him, before concluding; "sometimes, I really do wonder what I'll do without her."

"Me too." Harry nodded, "but then I remember that I have you instead… and that you are everything she once was, and so much more."

"And, I'm yours." Rosa giggled, "on paper, as well as in our hearts."

"That's true." Harry smiled. "And I am yours."

"Until death us do part."

"Until death us do part…" he echoed, taking her hand, and following Leo and Janet out of the lonely churchyard, only glancing back to read the headstone:

_Nicola Alexander_

_14 April 1975 - 12 March 2010_

_Her spirit lives on, forever more._


End file.
